LETTER 


TO 


ARCHIBALD  M'lXTYUE,  ESQ.. 


<)P  THR 


STATE  OF  NEW- YORK 


i£x  IGtlirta 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


-f'  Tort  nleuw  ^im^ftrcLim.  ojr  <le  Manhatarus 


When  you  leave,  please  leave  this  book 

Because  it  has  been  said 
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Except  a  loaned  book." 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


TO 


ARCHIBALD  MWTYEE,  ESQ,. 

OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW-YORK. 


Sir, 

My  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  18th  of  August  has 
been  postponed  longer  than  I  could  have  wished,  by 
unavoidable  delay  in  procuring  the  accompanying 
documents,  by  a  hope  that  the  vouchers  which  I  had 
requested  to  be  returned  to  me  as  early  as  October, 
1818,  and  which  are  yet  withheld,  would  certainly 
have  been  returned  before  this  time,  and  by  a  desire 
to  have  your  statement  of  my  accounts  with  the  state 
(the  final  audit  of  which  was  not  received  until  last 
month)  examined  by  competent  accountants. 

That  examination  has  required  much  time  and  la- 
bour, in  consequence  of  the  perplexity  which  has 
been  thrown  over  the  accounts  by  the  various  ways  in 
which  you  have  stated  them,  in  March,  1818,  Febru- 
ary, 1819,  and  on  the  27th  of  August  last;  by  the 
opening  of  accounts  which  had  been  examined  and 
allowed,  and  for  the  ascertained  balance  of  which,  I 
had  been  paid  as  early  as  July,  1812 ;  for  the  purpose. 


4 


I  presume,  of  suspending  in  1818  as  questionable 
charges-,  large  sums  comprised  in  those  balances,  and 
which  were  not  restored  to  my  credit  until  August 
last;  thus  holding  me  up  to  the  community  as  a 
debtor  for  money  drawn  from  the  treasury  for  audited 
balances  due  and  paid  to  me  seven  years  ago;  and 
also  by  the  manner  in  which  the  remaining  vouchers 
have  been  scattered,  part  of  which  have  been  return- 
ed to  me,  part  of  them  have  been  retained  by  you, 
and  a  part  sent  to  Washington  without  my  knowledge 
or  permission. 

In  your  letter  you  have  gone  at  length  into  the 
transactions  relative  to  my  accounts.  I  shall  there- 
fore close  the  correspondence  on  my  part,  with  a  full 
exposition  of  the  circumstances  to  which  your  com- 
munication relates;  and  in  doing  this  it  will  be  neces- 
sary for  me  to  revert  to  the  origin  of  these  transactions, 
and  to  trace  them  back  to  an  earlier  epoch  than  that 
to  which  you  have  chosen  to  refer. 

Although  the  manner  in  which  the  account  against 
me  at  the  treasury  has  arisen,  is  familiar  to  you,  it 
may  not  be  so  to  others  who  either  take  an  interest 
in  the  controversy  in  which  I  am  involved,  or  whose 
duties  it  may  hereafter  become  to  act  upon  the  sub- 
jects of  it.  A  brief  explanation  of  it  here  will  not 
therefore  be  deemed  amiss. 

Of  the  various  and  extensive  appropriations  which 
were  made  by  the  legislature  of  this  state  during  the 
period  that  1  administered  its  government,  most  of 
the  acts  directed  the  money  to  be  expended  "by 
order,"  or"  under  the  direction  of  the  person  admi- 
nistering the  government."  When  therefore  it  became 
expedient  to  draw  monies  from  the  treasury  in  order 
to  carry  those  appropriations  into  effect,  or  to  defray 


expenses  already  incurred,  the  subordinate  agents 
entrusted  with  the  expenditure  applied  to  me  for  re- 
quisitions directing  your  warrant  to  issue  on  the 
Treasury  in  favour  of  the  individual  who  was  ap- 
pointed to  receive  the  money.  It  has  been  your 
practice  to  charge  these  sums  to  my  account,  instead 
of  those  of  the  persons  to  whom  the  disposal  of  the 
money  was  assigned,  thereby  holding  me  accountable 
for  the  ability,  fidelity,  and  integrity  of  those  subordi- 
nate agents,  and  rendering  me  liable  for  all  the  acci- 
dents to  which  their  papers  and  documents  might  be 
subjected  by  sudden  casualties. 

In  the  early  part  of  my  administration  I  protested 
against  this  practice,  and  1  mentioned  to  you  my 
opinion  that  the  monies  drawn  from  the  treasury  on 
your  warrants  issued  upon  my  requisitions,  by  officers 
and  agents  of  the  government,  and  receipted  for  by 
them,  ought  to  be  charged  to  them,  and  not  to  me ; 
and  that  they  ought  to  account  to  you  directly  there- 
for, and  not  through  me;  but  your  opinion  being  dif- 
ferent, your  own  course  was  adopted,  except  in  a  few 
instances  during  the  latter  part  of  my  administration. 
The  great  injustice  of  this  course  cannot,  I  think,  fail 
to  strike  the  mind  of  every  dispassionate  observer, 
and  its  adoption  has  been  the  chief  cause  of  the  diffi- 
culties under  which  I  have  laboured. 

Of  upwards  of  one  million  of  dollars  which  has 
been  charged  to  me  in  the  course  of  ten  years,  and 
for  the  expenditure  of  which  I  have  been  called  upon 
to  account,  and  in  many  instances  to  reaccount,  a  very 
large  amount  has  been  receipted  for  by  others  and 
has  never  passed  through  my  hands;  your  pertinacity 
in  thus  keeping  me  liable  for  the  disbursement  of 
monies,  when  their  disposition  was  beyond  my  con- 


troul,  necessarily  subjected  me  to  great  risk,  respon- 
sibility and  loss,  besides  expense,  labour,  and  anxiety., 
in  the  midst  of  other  official  duties,  which  after  the 
commencement  of  the  war  became  infinitely  arduouh 
and  perplexing. 

In  March,  1812,  1  received  a  requisition  from  the 
general  government,  to  detach  and  march  to  Black- 
Rock,  Oswego,  and  Sacket's-Harbour,  sixteen  hun- 
dred of  the  New-York  militia ;  soon  thereafter,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  ensuing  summer  and  fall,  most  of 
the  detached  militia,  together  with  a  considerable 
number  of  independent  and  volunteer  companies, 
were  called  into  actual  service  at  New-York,  Sag- 
Harbour,  Buffalo,  Lewiston,  Niagara,  Oswego,  Og- 
densburgh,  Plattsburgh,  and  at  frontier  posts  between 
those  places. 

Upon  inquiry  where  camp  equipage,  subsistence, 
equipments,  and  quarters,  at  those  stations,  were  to 
be  found,  it  appeared  that  there  was  no  immediate 
provision  for  a  supply  of  either,  but  remittances  were 
made  to  me  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  a  request 
that  I  would  arm,  march,  subsist,  and  quarter  those 
troops.  There  was  no  alternative  between  the  as- 
sumption of  that  labour  and  responsibility,  which  did 
not  belong  to  me,  and  the  suffering  and  disquiet  of 
the  militia,  called  into  service  for  the  defence  of  our 
exposed  fellow  citizens  of  the  frontiers.  I  was,  there- 
fore, compelled  to  assume  in  addition  to  my  proper 
official  duties,  those  of  all  the  subordinate  depart- 
ments of  that  portion  of  the  frontier  forces,  composed 
of  militia  amounting  to  nearly  25,000  men ;  in  which 
arduous  service  I  was  involved  the  whole  of  that 
campaign. 


7 


In  the  early  part  of  the  next  winter  session  of  the 
legislature,  resolutions  were  passed  in  the  assembly, 
calling  on  me  to  report,  not  only  the  accounts  and 
vouchers  for  the  distribution  of  munitions  belonging 
to  this  state,  but  of  the  expenditure  of  the  monies 
intrusted  to  me  by  the  national  government.  They 
also  called  upon  you  to  report  "  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  monies  drawn  from  the  treasury  by  virtue  of 
the  act  further  to  provide  for  the  defence  of  the 
frontiers,  passed  12th  June,  1812,  and  of  the  ex- 
penditure thereof,  according  to  the  vouchers  returned 
and  filed  in  your  office."     For  the  monies  received 
from    the   United   States  and  their  expenditure, 
I  was  not  accountable  to  the  assembly,  nor  had 
they  any  right  to  make  such  call  on  me ;  but  as  a  ma- 
jority of  that  body  was  decidedly  opposed  to  the 
war  and  to  the  prosecution  of  it,  as  the  Council  of 
Appointment  and  most  of  the  officers  appointed  by 
them  were  of  the  same  political  character,  and  as  1 
stood  nearly  alone  in  the  government,  I  thought  it 
best  for  the  interests  of  my  country,  to  yield  my  own 
rights  and  comply  with  all  their  resolutions. 

The  original  vouchers  and  bonds,  for  munitions  and 
other  public  property,  were  transmitted  by  special 
message,  with  a  request  that  they  should  be  returned 
tome.  No  legislative  measures  were  founded  upon 
this  message  and  these  documents,  but  the  bonds  and 
vouchers  disappeared  and  have  never  since  been  found  or 
returned  to  me.  The  journals,  message,  and  other 
evidences  of  the  fact  of  this  loss,  were  exhibited  to 
the  commissioners,  to  the  committee,  and  to  yourself, 
on  various  occasions. 

The  demand  made  upon  me  to  exhibit  an  account 
of  the  monies  expended  for  the  United  States  as 


8 


well  as  for  this  state,  in  the  midst  of  a  busy  legisla- 
tive session,  without  the  necessary  aid  to  perform  a 
task  so  laborious  in  the  then  impaired  state  of  my 
health,  was  the  cause  of  the  intermixture  of  vouchers, 
or  duplicates  regularly  chargeable  to  the  one  govern- 
ment, with  those  chargeable  to  the  other;  a  circum- 
stance which  has  since  afforded  the  text  for  many 
uncharitable  commentaries. 

The  accounts  of  expenditures  of  state  monies 
were  formally  rendered  at  yo-ur  office,  with  abstracts 
and  vouchers,  which  enabled  you  to  comply  with  the 
resolution  of  he  assembly,  and  your  report  thereon 
is  to  be  found  in  the  journals  of  that  session,  (page 
535,)  and  it  is  here  proper  to  state  what  you  have  fre- 
quently admitted,  that  at  the  same  time  I  also  trans- 
mitted to  your  office,  vouchers  to  a  large  amount,  of 
various  other  expenditures  for  the  state,  independent 
of  those  called  for  by  the  resolutions,  and  embraced 
in  that  report. 

The  peculiar  nature  of  the  call  required  you,  as 
you  supposed,  to  separate  the  vouchers  into  parcels 
differing  from  the  abstracts  and  vouchers  as  I  had 
rendered  them,  which  threw  them  into  great  confusion 
and  disorder,  and  no  part  of  these  abstracts  or  vouch- 
ers were  audited  or  carried  to  my  credit,  but  they  all 
remained  in  your  office,  in  the  confusion  into  which 
your  compliance  with  the  legislative  resolution  had 
thrown  them,  until  the  year  1811. 

At  that  period  you  mentioned  this  circumstance  to 
me,  and  added  that  they  were  in  such  a  state  of  con- 
fusion that  you  did  not  well  know  what  to  do  with 
them.  I  then  offered,  if  you  would  return  them  to 
me,  and  point  out  a  suitable  person  to  whom  they 
might  be  entrusted,  to  employ  such  person  to  arrange 


9 


ihein  anew.  You  named  Isaac  Q.  Leake,  esq.  I  acced- 
ed to  the  proposal,  and  some  time  in  February,  1814, 
sent  Mr.  Shippey,  who  then  acted  as  my  secretary,  to 
bring  the  papers  from  your  office,  in  order  that  they 
might  be  put  into  his  hands. 

On  Mr.  Shippey's  return  with  a  small  bundle  con- 
taining a  few  of  the  abstracts  and  v  ouchers,  and  some 
unintelligible  memoranda  in  your  handwriting,  I  was 
surprised  to  find  that  you  had  not  restored  any  thing 
like  the  quantity  which  I  had  deposited  in  your  office 
in  1813,  and  I  sent  him  immediately  back  to  you  with 
a  message  to  that  effect.  He  returned  with  an  answer 
that  you  would  call  on  me  in  the  evening,  as  appears 
by  the  following  certificate  : 

1  certify  that  at  the  request  of  Governor  Tompkins,  with  whom 
\  was  then  a  clerk,  I  went  to  the  Comptroller's  office  in  February, 
1814,  to  bring  home  a  quantity  of  accounts,  abstracts  and  vouchers, 
which  had  been  previously  rendered,  and  on  which  the  Comptrol- 
ler had  made  a  detailed  report  to  the  legislature.  That  on  my  re- 
turn with  a  small  bundle  the  Governor  expressed  his  surprise,  and 
asked  why  I  did  not  bring  the  whole  ?  He  was  answered  that  those 
were  all  the  Comptroller  gave  me.  He  desired  me  to  return  and 
inform  the  Comptroller  that  the  vouchers  he  had  returned  were 
nothing  like  the  quantity  which  had  been  rendered,  and  to  request 
him  to  look  for  and  return  the  residue.  I  did  so  and  the  Comp- 
troller said  he  would  call  at  the  Governor's  in  the  evening,  which 
he  did  just  before  I  left  the  Governor's.  What  conversation  pass- 
ed between  them  at  that  interview  I  did  not  hear. 

JOSIAH  SHIPPEY,  Jr. 

You  called  according  to  appointment,  and  I  repeat- 
ed to  you  at  that  interview  that  the  vouchers  had  been 
delivered  by  me  in  person  the  preceding  winter,  and 
in  order  to  refresh  your  memory,  I  mentioned  the  cir- 
cumstance of  my  being  accompanied  by  a  servant, 

2 


10 


•unli  a  large  basket  full  of  abstracts  and  vouchers 
You  recollected  the  circumstance,  and  admitted  thai 
the  parcel  you  had  delivered  to  Mr.  Shippey,  did  not 
appear  to  you  to  be  the  same  in  quantity,  but  stated, 
that  those  papers  were  all  you  had  found  ;  at  the  same 
time  promising  to  make  a  more  thorough  search  the 
next  day.  \\ 'hat.  success  attended  tlii^  search  the 
following  letter  which  I  received  from  you,  accompa- 
nied by  a  few  more  scattered  and  detached  vouchers, 
will  show;  and  it  will  also  evince,  that  you  did  not  at 
that  time,  when  all  the  circumstances  were  fresh  in 
our  recollection,  feel  yourself  at  liberty  to  state  posi- 
tively, that  the  vouchers  returned  to  me,  were  all  that 
I  had  sent  you. 

SIR, 

The  parcel  accompanying  this,  is  all  that  remains  in  my 
office,  /  believe,  of  the  accounts  and  vouchers  rendered  by  your 
Excellency  last  winter. 

It  will  be  out  of  my  power  to  spend  any  time  in  the  examination 
of  accounts  till  next  week.  My  time  is  now  wholly  taken  up  night 
and  day  with  tax  sales. 

Very  respectfully, 
Your  Excellency's 

Most  obedient  servant, 
ARCH.  M'INTYRE. 

His  Excellency  Governor  Tompkins. 

16th  Feb.  1814 

Mr.  Leake  was  not  then  in  town,  and  the  pressing 
duties  of  the  campaign  of  1814,  deprived  me  of  the 
power  of  attending  to  that  business  until  peace  was 
announced.  I  then  referred  the  papers  to  him,  who  first 
copied  such  of  the  abstracts  you  had  returned,  and 
then  selected  the  vouchers  which  you  had  also  return- 
ed, with  a  view  to  restore  them  to  their  proper  order. 


11 


when  it  was  satisfactorily  ascertained  that  a  large 
part  of  my  vouchers  were  missing,  as  appears  from 
the  following  certificate  : 

I  hereby  certify,  that  in  the  spring  of  1815,  his  Excellency 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  then  Governor  of  the  State  of  New-York, 
requested  me  to  adjust  some  accounts  of  expenditures,  made  by  him 
in  behalf  of  the  said  state,  and  for  that  purpose  put  into  my  posses 
sion  a  trunk  containing  sundry  papers,  many  of  which  were  of  a 
private  nature,  and  among  which  were  various  abstracts  of  public 
disbursements,  purporting  to  have  been  rendered  with  vouchers 
accompanying  to  Archibald  M'Intyre,  Esq.  the  Comptroller  of  the 
State,  in  1813.  Upon  these  abstracts  were  notes  and  endorsements, 
some  in  the  handwriting  of  the  said  Comptroller,  and  some  in  that 
of  John  Ely,  Jr.  the  deputy  Comptroller,  from  which  it  appeared 
that  they  must  have  been  so  rendered  ;  and  in  the  margin  of  which 
also,  to  the  whole,  or  most  of  the  items  comprised  in  them,  were 
remarks  in  the  same  handwriting,  classifying  each  under  the  dif 
ferent  heads  of  expenditure,  required  by  certain  resolutions  of  the 
assembly  in  1813. 

That  alter  selecting  the  private  papers  from  those  of  a  public 
character,  1  proceeded  to  search  for  the  vouchers  to  which  the 
said  abstracts  had  reference,  but  notwithstanding  the  most  vigilant 
investigation,  many  of  these,  and  to  a  very  large  amount,  could  not 
be  found. 

ISAAC  q.  LEAKE 

New-York,  30th  Aug.  1819. 

I,  however,  made  no  complaint,  and  omitted  the 
public  disclosure  of  these  losses,  until  the  interview 
with  the  Commissioners  and  yourself,  when  the  pre- 
ceding facts  with  certain  evidences  were  submitted, 
and  you  then  admitted  the  accuracy  of  my  state- 
ments. You  went  farther,  and  not  only  expressed 
your  belief  that  I  had  been  a  great  loser  on  that  oc- 
casion, but  frankly  admitted  that  both  yourself  and 
your  deputy  Mr.  Ely,  recollected  two  other  vouchers 
which  you  specified  as  having  been  rendered  by  mc 


12 


in  1813,  but  which  were  not  then  credited  to  me,  or 
included  in  any  of  my  subsequent  accounts,  nor  were 
they  now  to  be  found  in  your  office.  These  facts  you 
repeated  before  the  Joint  Committee,  and  as  the 
vouchers  thus  recollected  by  you  are  not  contained 
in  the  abstracts  which  were  returned  to  me,  it  conclu- 
sively appears  that  other  abstracts  than  those  return- 
ed were  sent  to  you  in  181  3,  the  amount  of  which 
cannot  now  be  ascertained. 

These  statements  and  document-  were  exhibited 
both  to  the  Commissioners  and  to  the  Committee, 
(always  in  your  presence,)  and  were  not  denied  or 
controverted  by  you  in  any  respect,  but  on  the  con- 
trary were  candidly  admitted. 

To  remove  all  doubt  as  respects  the  loss  of  vouchers, 
I  will  refer  you  to  your  report  of  the  3d  April,  1813, 
the  amount  of  which,  as  I  have  before  mentioned,  was 
never  passed  to  my  credit.  The  accounts  and 
vouchers  constituting  that  report,  together  with  others 
transmitted  to  you  at  the  same  time,  were  the  papers 
which  you  professed  to  have  returned  to  me  by  Mr. 
Shippey,  but  which,  (as  appears  by  his  certificate,  that 
of  Mr.  Leake,  your  letter,  and  your  admissions  to  me, 
to  the  Commissioners,  and  the  Committee,)  could  not 
have  been  done.  By  comparing  this  report  with  that 
of  1816,  a  very  essential  difference  is  discovered;  for 
in  1813,  you  report  that  I  had  expended  under  the 
second  section  of  the  act  of  12th  June, 
1812,  -  -  -  550  23 

And  under  the  third  section  of  the  same 
act,  -  -  -  -  -    5,719  8& 


Making  an  aggregate  of 


S6,270  09 


13 


In  1816  you  report  no  disbursements 
under  the  second  section;  and  under  the 
third  section,  only  ...      1804  04 

The  balance,  therefore,  -  -    S4466  05 

is  a  deficit  to  my  prejudice,  in  those  two  items  of  ex- 
penditure alone. 

The  surest  test  however,  one  which  incontroverti- 
bly  proves  the  fact,  and  at  the  same  time  gives  a  par- 
tial estimate  of  the  loss  sustained,  is  by  a  comparison 
of  the  report  of  3d  of  April,  1813,  in  which  you  ex- 
pressly state,  that,  "  according  to  vouchers  returned  and 
jilcd  in  your  office"  I  had  expended  under  the  act  of 
12th  June,  lt>12,       -  -  -      %  155,874  56 

But  upon  an  investigation  of  all  your 
statements  of  my  accounts  up  to  the  final 
audit  of  27th  xAugust,  1819,  and  by  extract- 
ing therefrom  all  items  bearing  date  subse- 
quent to  12th  June,  1812,  (the  passage  of 
the  bill,)  and  previous  to  the  3d  of  April 
inclusive,  (the  date  of  the  report,)  ex- 
cepting such  as  conclusively  appear  to 
be  expenditures  under  other  appropria- 
tions, I  cannot  discover  that  you  have 
allowed  and  passed  to  my  credit  more 
than  -  -  -  -    100,150  91 


The  difference,  amounting  to  -    $55,723  65 

at  least,  has  been  wholly  lost  to  me.  It  must  have 
happened  at  that  time,  and  could  have  occurred  from 
no  other  cause  than  the  one  to  which  I  have  ascribed 
it. 


14 


But  this  is  by  no  means  the  extent  of  ray  loss :  other 
losses  were  specified,  and  I  believe  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained, which  had  been  occasioned  hy  the  death, 
absence,  failure  or  misconduct  of  individuals,  and  hy 
casualties  detailed  in  the  memoranda  furnished  to  the 
chairman  of  the  committee,  which  you  saw  and  re- 
peatedly examined. 

Had  the  preceding  amount  of  vouchers  demonstra- 
ted to  have  been  lost  while  in  your  possession,  which 
you  refused  to  credit  meat  my  solicitation,  been  <<1- 
mitted  ;  had  the  amount  drawn  from  the  treasury  by 
the  subordinate,  agents  of  the  government,  and  ehargrd  to 
my  account,  been  credited ;  and  the  items  of  my 
account  suspended  by  you  as  advances,  or  rejected 
without  sufficient  reasons,  (a  part  of  which,  amount- 
ing to  $7 1,972  51,  I  had  withdrawn  on  the  passage 
of  the  law,  at  your  request,  or  to  facilitate  the  settle- 
ment of  certain  accounts  in  your  office,)  been  allowed 
me ;  the  final  audit  and  settlement  of  my  accounts, 
instead  of  a  balance  against  me,  would  have  exhibited 
me  as  a  creditor  of  the  state  of  822,274  15,  as  will 
appear  by  the  certificate  and  account  f  A)  annexed. 

To  the  Commissioners  and  the  Joint  Committee, 
(always  in  your  presence,)  I  also  exposed  the  difficul- 
ties under  which  1  had  laboured  on  account  of  Por- 
ter's Volunteers,  raised  upon  my  sole  responsibility, 
in  opposition  to  the  declared  will  of  the  legislature ; 
a  corps  of  brave  and  patriotic  men,  whose  achieve- 
ments reflected  lustre  upon  the  state  and  country, 
and  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  save  the  gallant 
army  of  Niagara. 

Besides  the  accounts  and  vouchers  rendered  by 
me  to  the  state,  another  laborious  account,  compri- 
sing an  immense  volume  of  abstracts  and  vouchers  of 


15 


agents,  officers  and  citizens,  employed  in  the  compil- 
er-;ed  and  extensive  militia  operations  of  1812,  ex- 
ceeding in  amount  $600,000,  was  rendered  to  the 
U  ited  States.  The  letter  of  Mr.  Lear  containing 
the  final  audit  of  my  account  with  the  general  govern- 
ment, and  the  account  itself,  were  often  exhibited  to 
you,  to  the  Commissioners,  and  to  the  Joint  Commit- 
tee. The  balance  expended  by  me  in  the  campaign 
of  that  year  in  the  defence  of  the  frontiers  of  this 
state,  was  much  more  than  I  had  received,  indepen- 
dent of  various  payments  and  expenditures,  the 
vouchers  for  which  could  not  be  collected  and  ar- 
ranged in  season. 

In  the  year  1 814,  the  aspect  of  public  affairs  in  this 
quarter  of  the  union  was  truly  alarming.  Our  east- 
ern brethren,  blinded  by  a  momentary  infatuation  of 
party  zeal,  not  only  withheld  their  support,  but 
threatened  serious  resistance  to  the  constitutional 
arm;  a  well  appointed  and  veteran  army,  aided  by  a 
strong  naval  force,  was  pressing  upon  our  Champlain 
frontier :  the  Ontario  squadron  was  in  danger  of  at- 
tack in  Sacket's-Harbour  from  another  combined 
land  and  naval  armament :  the  lately  victorious  but 
now  suffering  army  of  Niagara,  was  pent  up  in  Fort 
Erie  by  the  British  forces  in  that  quarter:  the  city  of 
New-York  was  menaced  with  invasion :  the  capital 
of  the  Union  was  smoking  in  ruins :  and  to  give  the 
deepest  shade  to  the  gloomy  aspect  of  our  affairs,  and 
add  to  the  difficulty  of  their  redemption,  the  national 
government  was  literally  pennyless. 

At  that  momentous  and  trying  crisis,  I  had  an  op- 
portunity, as  you  well  know,  by  accepting  the  Depart* 
ment  of  State,  of  retiring  from  the  cares,  the  labours, 
the  perplexities,  and  responsibilities  of  the  station  I 


16 


then  occupied,  to  one  more  seducing  to  ambition,  and 
opening  future  prospects,  which  lew  men  in  my  situa- 
tion would  have  hesitated  to  pursue.  But  I  declined 
the  flattering  offer,  which  was  made  to  me  by  Mr. 
Madison,  of  a  seat  in  the  national  cabinet,  and  con- 
tinued in  the  station,  where  my  local  experience  and 
associations,  enabled  me  to  be  most  useful  to  my 
country. 

At  this  interesting  period,  I  was  appealed  toby  llit 
National  Government  to  make  a  vigorous  exertion, 
as  much  would  depend  upon  my  zeal  and  activity,  as 
the  chief  magistrate  of  a  state  which  was  the  princi- 
pal theatre  of  war.  Mr.  Monroe,  then  Secretary  of 
War,  under  date  of  the  15th  September,  1814,  wrote 
as  follows  :  "  General  Macomb,  at  Plattsburgh,  is  in 
danger  from  a  superior  force  marching  against  him, 
and  General  Brown  is  alike  exposed  to  imminent  dan- 
ger. It  is  in  the  power  of  your  state  to  make  an  ex- 
ertion that  will  not  only  save  those  armies,  but  crush 
the  British  force  employed  against  them.  May  I  en- 
treat you  to  call  out  immediately  such  a  force  in  each 
quarter  as  the  exigency  may  require,  and  hurry  it  to 
the  scene  of  action?  I  do  not  go  into  any  detail,  be- 
cause you  are  too  well  acquainted  with  all  the  cir- 
cumstances merking  attention  to  require  it.  General 
Izard  is  marching  to  the  aid  of  General  Brown,  but 
as  he  takes  Sacket's-Harbour  in  the  route,  and  de- 
pends on  a  conveyance  thence  by  water,  there  is 
much  uncertainty  in  his  movements.  1  wish  your 
measures  to  be  taken  independently  of  all  calcula- 
tions on  him,  since  the  expense  attending  them  count  as  no- 
thing compared  with  the  salvation  of  Brown's  army, 
and  of  the  post  of  Sacket's-Harbour,  w  hich  must  als© 
claim  your  attention," 


17 


Cotemporaneous  with  this  pressing  application  from 
the  Department  of  War,  and  within  a  few  days  of 
each  other,  I  received  the  most  urgent  appeals  for  as- 
sistance from  the  Committee  of  Defence  of  New- 
York  and  General  Lewis  in  the  south,  from  Generals 
Mooers  and  Macomb  at  the  north,  and  from  General 
Brown  in  the  west. 

General  Lewis,  then  commanding  at  New-York,  in 
his  communication  to  me  at  that  period,  states — 
u  Private  information  from  Halifax,  from  a  source  to 
be  relied  on,  leaves  little  doubt  of  a  formidable  ex- 
pedition, consisting  of  15,000  men,  being  on  its  way 
from  England,  destined  to  act  against  this  city,"  &c. 
kc.  And  in  a  letter  shortly  thereafter,  he  says,  "  Be- 
lieving that  (he  city  of  New-York  is  menaced  with  in- 
vasion, and  that  the  surest  means  of  averting  that  ca- 
lamity is  to  be  prepared  for  it,  I  take  the  liberty  of 
calling  on  your  Excellency  for  an  additional  military 
force,  to  consist  of  9,150  infantry,  and  1,050  artil- 
lerists." 

The  Committee  of  Defence  in  their  letter  of  the 
vime  period,  stated  as  follows : 

44  The  Committee  of  Defence  having  received  your 
Excellency's  letter,  advising  them  of  your  intention 
of  calling  into  immediate  service  10,000  militia  for 
the  defence  of  this  part  of  the  state,  considering  the. 
importance  of  this  city  as  the  commercial  emporium 
of  a  great  portion  of  the  United  States,  its  peculiar 
exposure  to  attack,  and  the  calamitous  consequences 
which  would  result  to  the  honour,  the  prosperity,  and 
the  finances  of  the  country,  in  case  a  successful  at- 
tempt should  be  made  upon  it,  are  unanimously  of 
opinion,  that  the  contemplated  call  of  the  militia 
ought  to  embrace  at  least  20.000  men.    The  fate  of 

3 


18 


Washington  ought  10  redouble  our  exertion?,  and  to 
teach  us  not  to  commit  the  destiny  of  this  place  to 
hazard  ;  the  expense  will  bear  no  proportion  to  the  object  to 
be  accomplished" 

General  Macomb,  in  his  despatch  from  Plattsburgh 
of  the  same  date,  says,  "  It  is  now  ascertained  be- 
yond a  doubt  that  the  enemy  will  march  for  this  post 
with  his  whole  force  this  morning. 

u  .Much  is  at  stake  at  this  place  and  aid  is  actually 
wanted,  as  the  garrison  is  small  and  the  enemy  in  con- 
siderable force;  under  all  these  circumstances,  your 
E\rellcncy,  I  am  sure,  will  not  hesitate  to  afford  us 
all  the  assistance  in  your  power." 

And  General  Mooers,  in  his  letter  by  the  same 
mrssengcr,  after  representing  in  the  most  earnest  and 
patriotic  manner,  the  dangers  of  the  country  and  his 
willingness  to  devote  himself  to  its  protection,  adds, 
*  the  exposed  situation  of  this  frontier  and  the  alarms 
so  often  repeated,  have  discouraged  many  of  the  citi- 
zens from  taking  up  arms  as  they  would  otherwise 
have  done.*' 

The  situation  of  the  army  of  Niagara  was  equally 
critical,  nor  were  the  appeals  of  General  Brown  for 
relief  less  urgent :  after  stating  the  emergency,  u  will 
it  not  be  possible,"  he  asks,  44  for  you  to  increase 
General  Porters  corps,  and  that  promptly?  I  have 
found  General  Porter  a  brave  and  efficient  officer: 
in  the  midst  of  danger  his  mind  is  calm  and  collected, 
and  his  judgment  always  to  be  relied  upon ;  these 
are  rare  qualifications,  and  therefore  it  is  that  1  de- 
sire that  all  militia  force  may  be  continued  under  his 
command." — And  in  a  letter,  of  date  a  few  days  sub- 
sequent, he  says — 

"  I  was  gratified  by  the  receipt  of  yours  of  the  13th 


19 


inst.  Colonel  Yates,*  your  aid,  will  remain  with  m 
and  we  will  try  to  make  the  most  of  the  ample  powers 
with  which  you  have  clothed  him.  I  rejoice  that  you 
have  it  in  contemplation  to  convene  the  legislature  at 
an  early  period.  We  have  been  amused  and  dis- 
graced too  long;  strong  measures  are  necessary  to 
save  the  sinking  honors  of  the  nation.  My  gallant  lit- 
tle army  has,  so  far,  done  its  duty,  and  has  been 
blessed  with  the  smiles  of  Providence,  but  unless  it  can 
receive  efficient  aid,  there  is  reason  to  fear  for  its  ultimate 
safety 

Venerable  and  patriotic  citizens  also,  such  as  Col. 
Rutgers,  Col.  Willett,  Gov.  Wolcott,  Mr.  King,  and 
others,  animated  me  to  the  greatest  efforts.  The 
latter  gentleman,  in  an  interview  with  me*,  was  pecu- 
liarly impressive  :  He  said  that  "  the  time  had  arrived 
when  every  good  citizen  was  bound  to  put  his  all  at 
the  requisition  of  government ;  that  he  was  read) 
to  do  this :  that  the  people  of  the  state  of  New-York 
would,  and  must  hold  me  personally  responsible  for 
its  defence  and  safety."  I  acquainted  him  with  the  dif- 
ficulties under  which  I  had  struggled  for  the  two 
preceding  years;  the  various  instances  in  which  I 
had  been  already  compelled  to  act  without  law  or 
legislative  indemnity,  and  urged,  that  if  1  should  once 
more  exert  myself  to  meet  all  the  emergencies  and 

*  Colonel  J.  B.  Yates  was  one  of  my  aids  during  the  war,  and 
was  despatched,  in  consequence  of 'Mr.  Monroe's  letter,  to  call  out 
the  militia  in  aid  of  General  Brown,  and  it  was  under  this  requisi- 
tion that  Swift  and  Davis'  corps  were  ordered  into  service.  Both 
those  gallant  officers  fell  in  that  campaign.  It  is  not  the  least  mor- 
tifying circumstance  of  these  transactions,  that  my  charge  for 
Col.  Yates*  expenses  in  this  important  service  remains  to  this  daj 
one  of  the  suspended  items  of  my  account. 


20 


pecuniary  difficulties,  with  which  wc  were  pressed 
I  must  inevitably  ruin  myself.  "  Well,  sir,"'  added 
be,  (wif h  that  enthusiasm  Which  genius  lends  to  pa- 
triotism,) 4i  what  is  the  ruin  of  an  individual  compa- 
red to  the  safety  of  the  republic?  if  you  are  ruined, 
you  will  have  the  consolation  of  enjoying  the  grati- 
tude of  your  fellow  citizens;  but  you  must  trust  to  the 
magnanimity  and  justice  of  your  country,  you  must 
transcend  the  law,  you  must  save  this  city  and  state 
from  the  dangers  with  which  they  are  menaced  ;  you 
must  ruin  yourself,  if  it  becomes  necessary,  and  I 
pledge  you  my  honor  that  I  will  support  you  in  what- 
ever you  do/' 

Under  such  circumstances  I  determined  to  forego 
the  honor  Mr.  Madison  intended  forme;  to  sacrifice 
my  own  health  and  the  comfort  of  my  family,  to  the 
paramount  duty  of  serving  my  country,  in  that  sphere 
where  I  could  be  more  useful,  and  to  olFer  myself  a 
victim  for  its  safety  if  it  should  be  necessary.  In  less 
than  forty  days,  without  assistance  in  money  from  the 
national  government,  I  brought  into  the  field,  at  vari- 
ous points  of  danger,  nearly  diiy  thousand  men,  orga- 
nized, armed  and  equipped  ;  endured  the  toil,  ex- 
pense, and  embarrassment,  of  commanding  twenty 
thousand  of  them  in  person,  and  at  the  same  time  ad- 
ministered the  government  of  the  ^tatc.  In  less  than 
sixty  days,  when  the  national  credit  was  at  its  lowest 
point  of  depression,  when  the  payment,  even  of  the 
interest  of  its  notes,  could  not  be  provided  for,  I  raised 
for  the  public  service  upwards  of  a  million  of  dollars 
in  current  money,  and  made  myself,  by  specific  con- 
tracts, personally  liable  for  the  whole  amount. — The 
enemy  having  obtained  possession  of  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  the  Union,  and  the  state  of  Massachusetts 


21 


having  refused  to  lend  any  pecuniary  aid  in  attempt- 
ing to  dislodge  him  from  her  territory,  I  informed 
General  Dearborn,  that  his  drafts  on  me  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  for  that  purpose, 
would  be  paid  at  sight :  thirty  thousand  dollars  were 
advanced  to  Colonel  Jessup  to  accomplish  the  enlist- 
ment of  a  regiment  in  Connecticut :  eighty  thousand 
dollars  were  advanced  for  the  relief  of  the  manufac- 
tory of  arms  belonging  to  the  United  States  at  Spring- 
field,  the  workmen  of  which  had  received  no  pay  for 
a  long  period,  and  were  on  the  eve  of  mutiny  :  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  were  sent  to  the  Military  Acade- 
my at  West  Point,  to  enable  the  cadets  to  leave  it  at 
the  termination  of  the  session,  for  which  they  were 
wholly  unprovided  with  funds  :  ten  thousand  dollars 
were  appropriated  to  provide  for  the  hospitals,  in 
some  of  which  the  sick  and  wounded  were  languishing 
without  the  ordinary  necessaries  and  comforts  of  such 
establishments:  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  was  also  advanced  to  the  New-Jersey  militia, 
who  had  stepped  forward  in  defence  of  the  city  of 
New-York :  five  thousand  dollars  to  aid  in  the  de- 
fence of  New-Orleans :  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
to  rescue  the  gallant  army  of  Niagara  from  famine 
and  disbandment,  and  the  residue  has  been  received 
by  the  patriotic  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  militia  of 
this  state,  who  served  in  that  campaign,  and  by  the 
staff  departments  attached  to  them. 

I  have  the  proud  satisfaction  to  say,  that  in  the 
whole  expenditure  of  three  millions  of  dollars,  I  never 
permitted  a  fellow  officer,  citizen  or  soldier,  to  be 
paid  in  depreciated  currency  of  any  kind.  In  order 
to  relieve  the  prisoners  of  Porters  volunteers,  and 
New-York  militia,  who  were  taken  in  the  memorable 


n 

sonic  from  Fort  Erie,  and  sent  by  the  enemy  round  to 
Boston  in  an  inclement  season  of  the  year,  I  obtained 
specie,  and  despatched  an  agent  with  it  to  that  place, 
in  order  to  provide  for  their  comfort  and  convenience 
in  getting  home,  without  imposition  or  sacrifice  from 
depreciated  currency.  In  addition  to  all  these  ex- 
ertions, at  the  recpuest  of  the  War  Department,  I  made 
frequent  and  expensive,  but  indispensably  necessary 
journies,  to  every  part  of  the  frontier,  with  officers  and 
suite,  in  hose  expenses  w  ere  borne  by  me. 

You  have  compelled  me  to  enter  into  these  details, 
which  might  appear  ostentatious,  were  they  not  forced 
upon  me  by  the  injustice  I  have  sustained  at  your 
hands.  It  would  be  a  false  delicacy  in  me,  under  the 
position  in  which  I  am  placed,  to  refrain  from  reviving 
the  recollection  of  circumstances  so  closely  connected 
with  the  merits  of  the  present  controversy ;  and  in  do- 
ing this,  I  rely  upon  that  magnanimous  candour,  with 
which  my  fellow  citizens  have  been  accustomed  to 
view  my  conduct. 

The  loans  of  money  which  I  obtained  were  general- 
ly made  to  me  for  terms  of  ninety  days,  or  six  months, 
under  an  assurance,  that  within  those  periods,  the  go- 
vernment would  be  amply  able  to  pay  and  relieve  me 
from  my  personal  responsibility ;  instead  of  which,  I 
was  left  until  the  year  1816,  liable  to  prosecution  and 
imprisonment  for  these  immense  sums,  and  for  which  I 
have  never,  to  this  moment,  received  thev  smallest 
indemnity,  either  from  the  national  or  the  state  go- 
vernment. 

It  was  for  the  raising  of  these  monies  thus  obtained, 
and  thus  expended,  and  in  view  of  the  great  losses 
which  I  had  evidently  sustained  in  your  settlement  of 
my  accounts,  that  the  patriotic  and  enlightened  legist 


S3 


lature  of  this  state  passed  the  law  of  the  last  session, 
out  of  which  this  controversy  has  grown,  and  in  the 
perversion  and  defeat  of  which  you  have  acted  so  con- 
spicuous a  part :  a  law,  by  which  they  intended  to 
allow  me  the  same  premium  which  the  general  govern- 
ment had  allowed  to  others  for  the  same  services, 
under  circumstances  certainly  not  more  meritorious. 
To  them,  a  stipulated  premium  was  given  for  raising- 
current  money  for  the  use  of  the  government,  and  to 
enable  them  to  do  so,  the  contractors  for  the  loans 
deposited  the  certificates  of  stock  at  tire  banks  and 
other  places,  and  by  adding  their  personal  responsi- 
bility to  the  deposit,  procured  the  money.  To  me 
they  advanced  treasury  notes,  by  depositing  which, 
and  adding  my  personal  responsibility,  and  the  little 
influence  I  enjoyed,  these  monies  were  raised  by  mei 
and  advanced  to  the  government. 

I  was  charged  with  and  held  personally  responsible 
for  the  treasury  notes  advanced  to  me  at  their  par 
value,  and  with  the  loss  which  was  sustained  on  such 
as  were  forced  into  the  market.  What  then,  I  ask. 
constituted  the  allowance  made  by  government  to 
others,  which  ought  not  to  exist  in  my  case?  Where 
was  the  difference,  except  that  the  means  afforded  to 
them  were  not  always  extended  to  me  ?  There  is  in- 
deed a  difference,  but  I  did  hope,  and  as  it  now  ap- 
pears, vainly  hoped,  that  this  difference  would  never 
have  been  objected  against  me.  I  was  no  Contractor  ! 
Wrhile  those  individuals  on  the  one  hand,  at  the  most 
dark  and  gloomy  crisis  of  our  affairs,  secured  their 
discount  by  guarded  and  well  digested  "contracts,"'* 
I  on  the  other,  as  I  was  advised  by  my  venerable  and 
patriotic  friends,  trusted  for  indemnity  for  losses,  sa- 
crifices, and  responsibilities,  4ito  the  masnanimi1.  y  of 


m 

my  country.'*  They  have  received  their  premium  to 
the  uttermost  farthing;  but  to  my  claims,  now  when 
the  danger  is  past,  when  our  country  is  rapid  1  J  pro- 
gressing in  the  full  tide  of  prosperity,  when  our  citi- 
zens are  enjoying  the  peace  their  valour  has  won,  il 
is  replied,  where  is  your  contract  ?  "  It  is  not  in  the 
bond."  You  have  stipulated  for  nothing,  and  therefore 
nothing  is  due  to  you. 

These,  sir,  were  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
monies  in  question  were  raised,  these  the  ground - 
upon  which  the  legislature  in  its  justice  passed  the 
law  which  granted  the  indemnity,  and  you  know  too 
well  the  pretences  upon  which  that  justice  has  been 
refused.  Judge  then,  of  my  feelings,  when  I  see  this 
act  of  justice  construed  by  you  as  a  donation  !  a  mere 
gratuity! 

I  have  always  been,  I  trust,  as  grateful  as  any  man, 
for  the  favours  which  I  have  so  repeatedly  received 
from  my  fellow  citizens,  and  as  ready  to  acknowledge 
them;  but  I  feel  that  I  cannot  but  be  justified  in  the 
opinion  of  every  honourable  and  high-minded  man. 
in  repelling  with  indignation  the  idea,  that  the  lan 
which  you  have  shown  such  overweening  anxiety  to 
defeat,  has  flowed  from  the  generosity,  and  not  the 
justice  of  my  country. 

Suppose,  sir,  that  instead  of  refusing  to  execute 
the  just  intentions  of  the  legislature,  you  had  made 
me  the  allowance  they  contemplated,  what  would 
have  been  its  effect  ?  Would  it  have  been  a  gain  to 
me  of  that  amount  ?  No,  you  well  know  that  it 
would  not ;  but  that  on  the  contrary,  it  would  have 
gone  to  satisfy  my  just  claims  for  monies  actually  ex- 
pended in  the  public  service,  and  for  which  I  am  noTA 
made  a  debtor  to  the  state,  and  held  up  to  the  nation 


25 


as  a  public  3efaulter,  because,  owing  to  the  pressure 
of  the  times,  and  the  exigencies  of  the  service,  some 
of  these  disbursements  were  not  strictly  authorized 
by  existing  laws  ;  and  for  others,  owing  to  the  nature  of 
the  expenditure,  and  the  hurry,  confusion,  and  casu- 
alties inseparable  from  a  state  of  war,  I  am  not  able 
to  produce  such  vouchers  as  are  strictly  legal,  and 
technically  correct. 

For  a  rigid  scrutiny  of  the  accounts,  and  a  perfect 
conformity  to  the  acts  of  appropriation  in  their  settle- 
ment, if  there  you  had  staved  your  hand,  you  would 
have  heard  no  complaint  from  me  ;  and  it  was  to 
guard  against  the  injustice  of  the  application  of 
those  principles,  that  the  law  in  question  was  passed  ; 
it  wras  for  that  reason  that  the  state  assumed  a  respon- 
sibility, which  though  equitably  and  honorably  bind- 
ing on  it,  was  only  strictly  so  on  the  general  govern- 
ment ;  but  it  is  in  the  devices  you  have  resorted  to  in 
preventing  the  operations  of  that  law,  that  you  have 
done  me  the  greatest  injustice,  and  shown  the  worst 
designs. 

It  has  not  now  for  the  first  time  been  discovered,  - 
that  in  a  state  of  war,  expenses  arc  often  incurred 
which  may  not  be  strictly  legal,  or  for  which,  owing 
to  the  state  of  the  times,  satisfactory  vouchers  may 
not  exist ;  nor  is  it  now  for  the  first  time  that  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  act  of  the  last  session  was 
grounded,  have  been  acted  upon. 

After  the  close  of  our  revolutionary  contest^similar 
difficulties,  growing  out  of  the  war,  were  fourTd  to  * 
exist  in  the  settlement- of  the  accounts  between  the 
general  and  state  governments;  and  to  remedy  the 
injustice  which  might  result  from  them,  an  act  was 
passed  by  Congress  in  1790,  appointing  Commission- 

4 


2G 


ers  to  settle  their  accounts:  the  3d  section  of  which 
is  in  the  following  words  : 

"And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  it  shall  be  the 
"  duty  of  the  said  Commissioners  to  receive  and  ex- 
"  amine  all  claims,  which  shall  he  exhibited  to  them 
"  before  the  first  day  of  July  1791,  and  to  determine 
#"on  all  such  as  shall  hare  accrued  for  the  general  or 
44  particular  defence  during  the  war;  and  on  the  evi- 
"dence  thereof,  according  to  the  principles  of  general 
"equity,  (although  such  claims  may  not  be  sanctioned  by 
"  the  resolves  of  Congress,  or  supported  by  regular  vouchers,) 
"so  as  to  provide  for  the  final  settlement  of  accounts 
"between  the  United  Stales,  and  the  states  indivi- 
4  dually."^ 

No  candid  and  dispassionate  mind  will  deny,  that 
the  reason,  principles,  and  policy  of  that  law,  of 
which  the  state  has  availed  itself,  apply  with  full  force 
to  the  case  in  question,  and  should  have  induced  a 
liberal  and  cheerful  acquiescence  in  the  provisions  of 
the  act  under  consideration. 

You  claim  great  merit  for  the  pressing  manner  in 
which,  by  letter  and  otherwise,  you  urged  the  settle- 
ment of  my  accounts  after  I  had  left  the  state  government. 
It  is  true,  that  at  that  period,  when  you  knew  the 
difficulties  under  which  I  laboured,  and  the  necessity 
of  legislative  interposition  to  insure  me  the  least 
semblance  of  justice,  you  showed  as  much  industry 
and  perseverance,  to  force  me  to  a  settlement,  as  you 
have  since  exercised  in  delaying  and  ultimately 
evading  the  desired  adjustment. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  sir,  that  under  existing  cir- 
:  cumstances,  with  health  impaired  by  the  fatigues, 
anxieties,  and  labours,  of  three  years'  public  service, 
(apparently  deserted  by  my  country's  protection. 


27 

when  no  longer  useful  to  her,  and  liable  to  be  torn 
from  a  family  that  is  clearer  to  me  than  any  thing  but 
that  country,)  that  I  should  have  paused  for  some 
time,  appalled  by  the  magnitude  of  the  responsibility 
and  sacrifices  to  which  my  devotion  to  the  public 
interest  had  alone  subjected  me  ?  Can  it  be  a  matter 
of  surprise  to  any  one,  that  I  should  have  waited  for 
legislative  provision  for  my  relief  during  the  period 
mentioned  in  your  letter — when  he  learns  that  1  had 
enquired  of  you,  whether  you  would  admit  to  m\ 
credit  the  amount  of  vouchers  rendered  to  you  in 
1813,  but  never  credited  to  me,  and  which  were  lost 
in  your  office,  and  you  declined  :  (notwithstanding 
the  abstracts  which  accompanied  those  vouchers 
were  produced  to  you,  with  your  marginal  notes  upon 
them,  which  must  have  convinced  you  that  the  evi- 
dences of  expenditure  had  once  been  in  your  posses- 
sion;) when  it  is  known,  moreover,  that  you  refused 
to  allowr  me  credit  for  more  than  one  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  advanced  to  officers  and  agents  of  the 
government;  unless,  in  addition  to  satisfactory  vouchers 
of  the  payment  of  the  money  to  them,  1  should  also 
produce  to  you  strict  evidence  that  they  (being  forty- 
nine  different  officers  and  agents  employed  during  the 
war,  some  of  whom  are  dead,  and  others  scattered 
over  the  state,  and  the  United  States,)  had  well  and 
faithfully  expended  it. 

When  such,  and  such  only,  were  the  principles  upon 
which  you  would  consent  to  make  a  settlement,  of 
what  advantage  would  it  have  been  to  have  rendered 
them  to  you  before  ?  It  might  indeed  have  enabled 
you  at  an  earlier  period  to  have  availed  yourself  of 
an  act  of  unguarded  confidence,  to  hold  me  up  to  pub- 
*»c  -"^mViori  and  ridicule,  by  puM  *       my  private 


28 


papers  as  vouchers  of  public  expenditure:  but  neither 
to  the  state  nor  to  roe  could  it  have  produced  any  be- 
neficial result. 

By  the  Journals  of  the  Assembly  in  1818,  it  will  ap- 
pear that  you  reported  a  balance  against  me  in  that 
year  of  Si 97,297  67 

and  that  the  suspended  items  of  my  ac- 
count then  rendered  amounted  to  141^41  79 


making  a  balance  of  g55,655  88 

against  me,  tor  which  no  vouchers  were  rendered. 
Why  they  were  not  produced  the  preceding  develope- 
ment  of  facts  sufficiently  explains. 

Had  you,  at  my  solicitation,  consented  to  allow  me 
even  for  vouchers  proven  to  have  been  in  your  posses- 
sion, and  never  returned  tome;  and,  also,  to  have 
credited  the  amount  expended  for  the  public,  and  ad- 
vanced to  agents  of  the  government;  instead  of  this 
enormous  sum  against  me.  your  report  would  have  ex- 
hibited a  balance  of  $67  88  in  my  favour,  indepen- 
dent of  vouchers  since  discovered  and  rendered  to  you, 
by  which  that  balance  is  increased  to  g22,274  15.  The 
settlement  of  my  account  upon  principles  so  obviously 
equitable,  would  have  produced  very  different  results, 
in  many  respects:  I  should  have,  been  spared  the  shafts 
of  calumny  which  have  been  with  such  envenomed 
malignity  levelled  at  my  peace — and  you  the  necessity 
of  resorting  to  the  various  shifts  and  devices  you  have 
practised,  to  protract  and  finally  defeat  its  liquid- 
ation. 

While  upon  this  subject,  permit  me  to  place  upon 
its  proper  ground  the  injury  I  have  received  at  your 
hands  in  the  communication  of  my  accounts  to  the  le- 
gislature in  January,  1819,  with  the  contumelious  re- 


29 

marks  that  accompanied  them,  which  have  been  so 
widely  published  to  my  prejudice  and  the  annoyance 
of  my  friends,  and  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  apolo- 
gy you  have  made  for  it. 

In  the  month  of  July,  1817,  I  received  from  you  a 
letter  dated  "  Comptroller's  Office, 

2d  July,  1817," 
which,  after  speaking  of  some  other  matters,  and  re- 
questing me   to   furnish   you  with   my  remaining 
vouchers,  concludes  as  follows : 

"  You  need  not  be  at  the  trouble  of  any  arrangement  of 
them ;  that  I  ivill  attend  to  myself.  The  making  of  mere  lists 
of  the  vouchers  is  all  that  is  necessary,  and  all  that  I  hope 
you  will  give  yourself  the  trouble  of  doing. 
With  my  sincere  respects, 
I  have  the  honor  to  be 
Your  Excellency's 

Most  obedient  servant, 
ARCH.  M'INTYRE, 

Compt. 

And  in  a  letter  of  the  26th  September,  after  making 
the  same  request  and  suggestion,  you  add,  M  To  their 
arrangement  and  classification  I  shall  cheerfully  at- 
tend; and  indeed  your  excellency  may  recollect,  that  no  atten- 
tion ivhatsoever  has  been  paid  to  the  arrangement  of  any 
of  the  vouchers  lately  rendered.'1'' 

After  the  receipt  of  tho.se  letters,  Mr.  Ironside  de- 
livered to  you  a  bundle  of  papers,  which  you  say,  and 
say  truly,  "  was  the  most  defective  of  the  whole,  and 
contained  more  of  the  exceptionable  items  than  any 
which  had  before  been  rendered ;"  and  you  might 
have  added,  upon  which  you  had  made  some  of  your 
most  offensive  remarks.  The  remarks  you  say  "  were 
intended  for  my  eye  alone,"  and  you  ask  if  I  was  die 


30 


satisfied  with  them,  why  I  did  not  complain  when  the 
etateraent  containing  them  was  sent  to  me.  I  have  not, 
sir,  been  in  the  habit  of  complaining,  but  let  me  now 
state  what  was  done,  and  thereby  test  the  propriety 
of  your  conduct.  Perceiving,  from  your  statement 
furnished  me,  that  many  of  the  vouchers  rendered  to 
you  at  different  times,  were  duplicates,  (which  it  was 
customary  during  the  war  in  most  cases  to  take,)  and 
that  among  them  also,  there  had  been  sent,  through 
inadvertence,  several  of  my  private  papers  and  re- 
ceipts, I,  on  the  20th  of  October,  1818,  wrote  to  you 
a  to  return  to  me  all  the  vouchers  and  duplicates  that 
were  not  absolutely  passed  to  my  credit;"  the  receipt 
of  this  letter  you  admit,  without  setting  forth  its  terms. 
On  the  4th  of  November,  1818,  you  returned  to  me 
the  vouchers  and  duplicates  required,  with  the  list  of 
the  same,  excepting  such  as  you  had  permitted  to  be 
taken  to  Washington,  and  some  few  detained  for  spe- 
cial purposes.  After  this,  sir,  could  I  expect  that  the 
vouchers  thus  withdrawn  by  me,  and  thus  relumed,  of 
which  mere  lists  had  been  furnished,  and  which  had 
been  sent  to  you,  under  your  letters  inviting  to  a  want 
of  care  and  scrutiny,  could  ever  be  regarded  by  any 
one.  and  much  less  by  you,  as  existing  charges  in  my  ac- 
count ?  But  what,  sir,  was  your  conduct  under  the 
circumstances  I  have  here  detailed,  and  which  cannot 
he  denied  ? 

On  the  18th  of  January,  1819,  resolutions  passed 
the  Assembly,  calling  on  you  to  report  to  that  house, 
whether  the  commissioners  appointed  at  the  previous 
session  to  settle  my  accounts,  had  executed  the  duties 
jf  their  appointment;  and  if  they  had  not,  then  to 
report  "  a  detailed  statement  of  the  unsettled  charges 
in  the  said  account,  and  the  objections  to  their  allowance,  to 


31 


the  end  that  some  proper  mode  might  be  prescribed  for  their 
final  settlement." 

Under  this  resolution,  you,  on  the  26th  of  that 
month,  reported  to  the  Assembly  all  the  duplicate 
receipts,  which  you  had,  the  preceding  fall,  at  my  in- 
stance, returned  to  me,  as  "  existing  charges  in  my  ac- 
count" against  the  state,  formally  alledging  as  your 
reason  for  rejecting  them,  that  they  were  double 
charges  previously  allowed.  You  went  farther,  and 
reported  as  "  charges"  in  my  then  account  against  the 
state,  various  receipts  for  private  expenses,  such  as 
"  Physicians'  bills,"  "  Pastry  cooks'  bills,"  a  bill  for 
.the  "  Analectic  Magazine,"  and  many  others  of  a  si- 
milar description,  the  receipts  for  which  you  had  long 
before  at  my  request  returned;  but  these  too,  you  re- 
ported to  the  legislature,  with  your  formal  reasons  for 
their  disallowance.  Could  you,  sir,  for  a  moment 
suppose,  that  papers  of  this  description  were  em- 
braced in  a  call  for  the  M  unsettled  charges  of  my  ac- 
count ?"  Could  you  believe  that  the  legislature 
required  your  M  objections  to  the  allowance"  of  dupli- 
cate and  private  receipts,  which  I  had  long  before  that 
time  withdrawn  as  such  ?  Is  it  possible  that  you 
could,  for  a  moment,  think  that  the  legislature  con- 
templated to  prescribe  "  a  mode  for  their  final  settle- 
ment ?"  No,  sir,  you  could  never  have  believed  it ! 
and  if  I  do  not  much  overrate  the  intelligence  and 
candour  of  my  fellow  citizens,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
you  to  divest  this  transaction  of  its  true  character,  a 
mischievous  exercise  of  the  authority  of  your  office, 
to  draw  upon  me  the  opprobrium  and  reproaches  of  the 
public,  and  eminently  calculated  to  disclose  the 
real  feelings  which  have  governed  the  whole  of  your 


32 


.dcent  conduct  in  my  afiairs,  and  the  end  which  wal 
hoped  to  be  obtained  by  it. 

But,  if  you  had  even  believed  that  the  resolution 
called  upon  you  for  a  report  of  these  matters,  and 
your  comments  upon  them,  could  you  not  have  spared 
one  moment  for  an  explanatory  remark?  To  have 
stated  the  circumstances  and  the  assurances  under 
which  the  vouchers  had  been  rendered?  To  have 
stated  the  simple  fact,  that  those  which  were  so  pal- 
pably objectionable,  had  been  long  since  withdrawn? 
You  say,  indeed,  that  you  44  could  not  know  that  the 
rejected  and  suspended  items,  and  the  remarks  there  - 
on, were  ever  to  be  published;99  How  wretched  is 
this  subterfuge  !  What,  sir  !  was  the  open  communi- 
cation of  them  to  the  assembly,  no  publication  ?  Was 
their  entry  on  the  journals,  nothing."  Were  you  so 
little  conversant  with  political  affairs  as  not  to  know 
that  even  newspaper  publication  of  them  would  be 
a  matter  of  unavoidable  consequence  ?  You  were  no 
such  novice — but  I  quit  this  disgusting  topic. 

In  March,  1818,  the  legislature  appointed  commis- 
sioners, to  adjust  and  settle  the  residue  of  my  accounts. 
They  met  in  Albany,  that  you  might  be  present,  and 
no  proof  was  made,  or  paper  exhibited,  except  in 
your  presence.  You  denied  no  part  of  my  statements, 
objected  to  none  of  the  documents  produced,  nor  to 
the  principles  contended  for,  as  applicable  to  them. 
It  appeared  before  the  commissioners,  that  f  had 
benefitted  the  state  in  one  way  alone  %  105,1 23,  upon 
my  own  responsibility  and  credit,  without  any  law  or 
authority  on  its  part;  but  they  decided  that  the  state 
should  have  the  sole  benefit  of  that  service,  and  there- 
fore rejected  that  item.  To  them  also  were  exhibited 
other  claims,  and  the  proofs  in  support  of  them,  which 


S3 


they  allowed.  Their  report  having  been  presented 
during  the  session,  and  not  previous  to  it,  as  the  reso- 
lution appointing  them,  perhaps,  required,  it  was  re- 
jerred  to  a  joint  committee  of  both  houses,  before 
whom  both  you  and  myself  repeatedly  appeared ;  1 
then  exhibited  the  same  correspondence,  evidences  of 
losses,  original  papers  and  accounts,  to  show  the 
justice  and  equity  of  the  principles  adopted  by  the 
commissioners;  and  I  believe  I  succeeded  in  showing 
this  both  to  your  and  their  satisfaction. 

I  not  only  exhibited  to  the  commissioners  and  to  the 
committee,  all  the  papers  concerning  the  business, 
but  gave  to  their  chairman  a  brief  or  memorandum  of 
all,  with  references  to  the  items  and  proofs  in  sup- 
port of  each  item,  and  submitted  to  them  the  follow- 
ing propositions  : 

1st,  That  a  law  be  passed  authorizing  the  comp- 
troller to  adjust  the  account  according  to  the  decision 
of  a  jury,  in  an  amicable  suit  to  be  instituted,  by  the 
verdict  of  which  I  offered  to  abide. 

2d,  That  the  legislature  should  appoint  any  three 
arbitrators  they  might  think  proper,  and  pass  an 
act,  authorizing  the  comptroller  to  settle  the  account 
finally  according  to  the  award. 

I  then  left  the  committee  and  yourself  in  consulta- 
tion:  you  oon  after  called  upon  me,  and  informed 
me  that  the  committee  were  disposed  to  admit  one  of 
the  items  allowed  by  Messrs.  Colden  and  Bogardus, 
provided,!  would  relinquish,  as  against  the  state,  my 
pay,  expenses  of  command  and  journies,  losses,  com- 
missions, interest,  and  all  demands  and  indemnity 
for  munitions  and  property,  for  which  the  state  had 
never  contributed  in  credit,  authority  or  money.  This 
concession  on  my  part,  you  declared,  would  produce 


34 

entire  unanimity  in  the  committee,  mid  advised  me  to 
make  the  relinquishment,  as  the  alhwanct  of  thai  one 
item  ahnc,  wotdd  leave  a  balance  in  my  favour,  and  I  might 
look  to  the  United  States  for  the  residue.  It  was  to 
meet  such  balance,  which  von  thus  admitted  would  be- 
due  to  me.  that  a  clause  authorizing  the  payment  was 
added  to  the  act:  and  of  this  balance,  by  overstepping 
the  bounds  of  your  official  duty,  and  defeating  the  ac- 
knowledged intentions  of  the  legislature,  you  are 
labouring  to  deprive  me. 

1  took  your  advice,  and  repaired  with  you  to  the 
committee  room,  and  there  voluntarily  renounced  all 
the  items  you  had  suggested.  This  relinquishment 
appeared  to  give  great  satisfaction,  both  to  the  com- 
mittee and  yourself,  and  much  pleasure  was  expressed 
at  the  unanimity  it  produced.  Some  of  the  commit- 
tee enquired  how  you  would  be  able  to  ascertain  the 
amount,  or  rate  of  premium,  or  discount,  which  was 
allowed  to  other  citizens  who  advanced  current  mo- 
ney to  the  government  at  the  same  period.  Mr.  J.  A. 
King,  one  of  the  committee,  mentioned  Mr.  Burrali 
as  a  competent  person  to  decide;  and  I  also  expressed 
my  willingness  to  leave  the  point  to  Mr.  Bayard,  Mr. 
Bronson,  Mr.  Astor.  Mr.  A  spin  wall,  Mr.  Furman,  or 
others  whom  I  named.  You  stated  to  the  committee 
(hat  there  would  be  no  difficulty  or  difference  between 
us  on  this  head,  and  that  if  the  certificate  of  indivi- 
duals should  prove  unsatisfactory,  you  would  write  to 
the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  obtain  from  him, 
official  information,  of  the  date,  and  terms  c>f  the 
loans  to  government. 

After  the  passage  of  the  bill,  in  consequence  of 
this  compromise,  I  called  at  your  office,  and  struck 
from  my  account  all  the  charges  for  pay,  expenses  of 


35 


command,  and  journies,  and  agreed  to  waive  losses, 
commissions,  interest,  &c. ;  in  short,  every  thing  that 
you  required  as  a  fulfilment  on  my  part  of  the  under- 
standing and  agreement  between  you.  the  committee, 
and  myself. 

I  did. more  :  after  the  committee  had  determined  to 
report  the  bill  which  ultimately  passed,  i  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  New-York  for  information,  as  to  the  rate  oi 
premium  which  had  been  allowed  by  government  to 
others,,  at  the  times  I  obtained  the  loans  in  question  ; 
and  being  advised,  after  the  passage  of  the  law,  thai 
it  was  greater  than  was  anticipated,  either  by  yon, 
the  committee,  or  myself ;   and,   unwilling  to  re- 
ceive any  thing  under  the  act  beyond  the  intention  of 
the  legislature,  I,  to  meet  the  liberality  of  that  body 
with  a  corresponding  spirit  on  my  part,  voluntarily 
withdrew  receipts  and  vouchers  to  a  large  amount, 
advanced  to  commissaries  and  others,  part  of  which 
had  been  suspended  by  you,  and  part  arbitrarily  re- 
jected, in  order  that  the  antiquity  of  the  transactions, 
the  death  of  the  parties,  and  other  causes,  which 
were  difficult  of  satisfactory  explanation,  might  not 
create  embarrassment  in  the  settlement.  And  here  lei 
me  remark,  that  a  deeper  scrutiny  into  the  papers 
with  which  you  have  furnished  me,  with  comparisons 
of  your  official  reports  from  time  to  time,  afford  ample 
conviction  of  the  fallibility  of  your  decisions,  and 
confirmation  to  me,  that  I  have  suffered  heavily,  not 
only  by  the  loss  of  vouchers  from  your  office,  but 
from  inaccuracies,  and  omissions,  in  the  final  audit 
and  settlement  of  my  accounts.* 


*  The  following  is  an  account  of  monies  drawn  from  the  trea. 


You  buffered  me  to  fulfil  the  stipulations  o(  the 
treat;  (if  I  may  so  call  it)  between  us.    You  suffered 

sury,  and  accounted  for  in  July,  1812,  but  of  which  not  a  dollar 
was  allowed  me  until  the  27th  of  August  last  : 
His  Excellency  Daniel  L).  Tompkins,  Governor, 

To  the  State  of  New-York,  DH. 
foil,  July  15,  To  Warrant  No.  759  on  the  Treasurer,  $1,000  00 
Oct.  B8,  To      do.     No.  923  do.  1,200  00 


$2,200  OC 

CR.  By  amount  expended  by  him  in  effecting  a  treaty 
with  the  Oneida  nation  of  Indians,  for  the  extinguish- 
ment of  their  claim  to  certain  lands  occupied  by  the 
New  Slockbridge  and  Brothcrtown  Indians,  and  for 
'he  purchase  of  said  claim  pursuant  to  said  treaty,  £2030  &t) 
Balance  due  the  State  of  New-York,  169  50 


S2,200  00 


State  oi  New-York — Comptroller's  Ollice. 

I  have  examined  the  preceding  account  of  His  Excellency  Daniel 
D.  Tompkins,  Governor  of  this  state,  in  relation  to  his  receipts 
and  expenditures,  under  and  pursuant  to  the  fifth  section  of  the  acf 
entitled  "  an  act  for  the  benefit  of  the  Onondaga  Tribe  of  Indians, 
and  for  other  purposes,"  passed  29th  March,  1811.  and  do  hereby 
certify,  that  there  is  due  from  him  thereon  to  this  stale,  the  sum  of 
One  hundred  and  sixty  nine  dollars  and  fifty  cents. 

ARCHD.  M'INTYRE,  Comptroller 
Albany,  June  30th,  1812. 
Treasurer's  Office — State  of  New-York. 

Received  from  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  Governor  of  the  said  state, 
one  hundred  and  sixty-nine  dollars  and  fifty  cents,  in  full  of  the 
balance  stated  in  the  above  account. 

DAVID  THOMAS,  Treasure:. 
JOHN  ELY,  Junr.  Dep.  Compt. 
Albany,  6th  July,  1812. 

Again — At  the  foot  of  an  account  rendered  from  your  office,, 
tohich  was  carried  into  the  general  account  corrent  of  6tb  Marchr 


37 


me  to  make  all  these  voluntary  relinquishments,  be- 
fore you  intimated  even  a  doubt,  or  suggested  a  diffi- 
culty of  performing  on  your  part,  that  which  was  the 
consideration  of  them.  As  the  matter  now  stands, 
you  have  made  me  the  victim  of  my  own  scrupulous 
adherence  to  the  engagements  1  had  made,  and  my 
solicitude  to  remove  all  possible  grounds  of  collision: 
whilst  you  withhold  on  the  part  of  the  state,  the  ful- 
filment of  the  law,  the  contemplation  of  which  could 
alone  have  induced  me  to  enter  into  these  engage- 
ments. 

You  have  thus  been  guilty  of  a  double  deception : 
first,  in  seducing  me  to  enter  into  the  arrangement 
by  assurances  that  it  would  form  a  sure  basis  of  the 
final  settlement  of  my  accounts ;  and  then  by  violating 
that  very  arrangement,  and  absolutely  refusing  the 
adjustment. 

1818,  and  constitutes  part  of  the  balance  of  $197,297  64,  is  the 
following  remark  : 

Of  this  balance  of  $  139,537  54,  it  appears  that  Governor 
Tompkins  has  paid  out  on  unsettled  contracts,  $5,928  88  as  follows  : 

1809,  Sept.     7,    To  Simeon  Frisbie,  $600  00 

1810,  Feb.  10,  To  do.  650  00 
Oct.  3,  To  do.  160  77 
Nov.    30,    To       do.                       340  00 

 —  3 1,750  77 

1808,    Nov.     2,    To  John  M'Lean,  as  before  noted,       923  11 

1811,  March  12,    To       do.  -  -        2,500  00 
March  14,    To  Russel  Atwater,        -       -  750  00 

$5,923  88 

And  yet  in  your  list  of  disallowances  of  the  same  date,  are  these 
very  items  rejected  as  having  been  allowed  to  me  years  before. — 
They  now  form  part  of  the  amount  withdrawn  by  me,  and  are  com- 
prised in  schedule  (A">  annexed. 


38 


Having  thus  reviewed  the  history  of  these  transac- 
tions up  to  the  passage  of  the  law.  1  will  now  answer 
those  parts  of  your  letter  which  relate  to  subsequent 
events.   On  the  day  preceding  that  on  which  I  h  it  Al- 
bany, in  April  last,  you  made  an  appointment  to  meet 
me  at  your  office  at  9  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  was 
true  to  my  appointment,  and  wailed  an  hour  before 
you  came.    You  then,  for  the  first  time,  suggested 
your  doubts  and  scruples  about  the  construction  of 
tho  law.  and  intimated  to  me,  that  as  the  attorney 
general  was  out  of  town,  you  had  called  upon  Mr. 
Van  Vechtcn.lhe  late  Attorney  General,  in  whose  judg- 
ment and  integrity  you  had  implicit  confidence,  and 
that  he  had  confirmed  )our  doubts.    I  was  greatly 
surprised  at  this  sudden  and  unexpected  change  in 
your  mind,  but  told  you,  that  if  the  proper  law  officer 
of  the  state  sanctioned  the  opinion  you  had  thus  sud- 
denly adopted,  I  should  acquiesce  in  silence.  But, 
as  Mr.  Van  Buren,  the  Attorney  General,  was  then 
absent;  as  Mr.  Ely,  your  deputy,  was  sick,  and  you 
were  desirous  of  going  a  few*  days  into  the  country, 
we  agreed  that  I  should  return  to  Albany  on  the  2d 
of  May  to  closo  the  business.    Before  I  left  you,  how- 
ever, you  expressed  your  willingness  to  leave  the 
question  to  Judges  Spencer  and  Van   .ess.    I  was  as- 
tonished at  this  intimation,  and  assigned  various  rea- 
sons why  it  was  impossible  to  accede  on  my  part  to 
that  proposal;  among  others,  I  urged  that  the  judges 
ought  never  to  be  called  upon  out  of  court  for  private 
opinions  in  any  case:  that  there  was  a  peculiar  in- 
delicacy in  applying  to  any  two  judges  in  particular, 
as  it  might  imply  a  want  of  confidence  in  the  learning 
or  integrity  of  the  others ;  and  finally,  that  an  applica- 
tion to  any  of  the  bench,  would  imply  a  direct  reflec- 


39 


tion  upon  the  competency  of  the  law  officer  of  the 
state,  whose  appropriate  duty  it  was  to  give  official 
opinions  in  the  first  instance,  wherever  the  interests  of 
the  state  were  concerned.  You  then  consented  to  take 
the  opinion  of  the  Attorney  General  on  his  return  ; 
and  why  you  afterwards  declined,  or  why,  in  the  se- 
quel, you  so  suddenly  lost  your  confidence  in  the  opi- 
nion of  Mr.  Van  Vechten,  (upon  which  you  so  impli- 
citly relied)  so  soon  as  you  found  it  was  no  longer  in 
your  favour,  is  left  for  your  conscience  to  determine. 

Previously  to  the  2d  of  May,  I  received  your  letter, 
acquainting  me  with  the  continuance  of  Mr  Ely's  ill- 
ness, which  prevented  me  from  coming  up  to  Albany 
at  that  time.  Colonel  Pell  and  myself  then  agreed  to 
meet  you  there,  early  in  June,  with  which  determina- 
tion he  acquainted  you,  and  soon  after  showed  me  a 
letter  from  you,  stating,  that  you  should  leave  Albany 
the  next  day  for  Essex  County,  and  should  not  return 
until  July.  We  then  agreed  to  meet  in  Albany  on  the 
6th  of  July,  but  you  informed  me  that  you  must  be  in 
New-York  on  that  day,  and  for  some  days  subsequent. 
We  then  went  to  Albany  on  the  24th  of  July,  which 
brings  me  to  that  part  of  your  letter  relating  to  the  cir- 
cumstances which  took  place  in  that  city,  when  the 
settlement  was  suspended  on  your  part. 

As  you  had  in  the  spring  intimated  to  me  doubts  as 
to  the  construction  of  the  law,  I  thought  it  my  duty  to 
remove  them  as  far  as  possible,  by  stating  a  case  and 
taking  the  opinion  of  the  most  eminent  counsel  upon 
it,  for  your  satisfaction ;  and  as  you  had  referred  to 
the  authority  of  Mr.  Van  Vechten,  the  late  Attorney 
General,  in  support  of  your  doubts,  I  unhesitating!} 
presented  the  case  to  thai  gentleman,  and  asked  fo) 
bis  written  opinion,  which  he  promptly  gave*  in  direr1 


10 


i>pf>ositiofn  lo  that  which  you  had  imputed  to  him. 
But,  the  truth  is,  that  your  statement  to  him,  as  no 
doubt  it  has  been  to  every  other  person,  was  incor 
rect  in  ihe  detail  of  facts.  And,  indeed,  sir,  how 
could  you  state  an  accurate  case,  upon  which  to  oh 
tain  opinions,  when  it  depended  upon  document? 
which  were  not  in  your  possession  until  Ihe  2d  of  Au- 
gust, the  day  before  your  letter  of  the  :>d,  announc- 
ing your  Baal  determinal  ion,  wm  written  ? 

Some  days  after  f  delivered  to  you  the  written 
opinion  signed  by  all  the  counsel  who  had  been  con- 
sulted, you  urged  me  to  go  with  you  to  Mr.  Van 
Vechten,  alleging  that  you  thought  it  improper  and 
indelicate  in  you  to  go  with  the  opinion  to  any  of  to) 
counsel,  and  to  converse  with  them  unless  in  my  pre- 
sence. 

To  remove  your  scruples,  I  consented  and  accom- 
panied you,  with  the  contracts  to  which  the  case  re- 
lated ;  and  after  examining  the  contracts.  Mr.  Van 
Vechten  told  you  frankly,  that  the  verbal  opinion  he 
had  given  you,  was  founded  upon  the  statement  you 
had  made  to  him,  relative  to  the  contracts  for  loans, 
which  was  not  correct  in  point  of  fefcfc;  and  that 
upon  the  facts  as  they  appeared  on  the  lace  of  the 
contracts,  he  assured  you  there  could  be  no  doubt  as 
to  thejntention  of  the  Commissioners,  the  Committee, 
and  the  Legislature,  or  as  to  the  legal  construction  of 
the  act. 

You  neTit  requested  me  to  call  with  you  upon  Mr. 
Henry,  w  ho  re-examined  the  papers  referred  to  in  the 
case,  answered,  as  Mr.  Van  Vechten  had  done,  all 
your  suggestions  of  doubt,  and  concluded  with  a  like 
positive  opinion,  both  as  to  the  intention  and  con- 
struction of  the  law.    You  then  pressed  me  to  take 


41 


?be  opinions  of  such  of  the  judges,  as  you  then  thought- 
unexceptionable  arbiters  between  us ;  I  consented  to 
abide  by  their  opinion,  if  you  would  undertake  to  ob- 
tain it,  at  the  same  time  repeating,  w  hat  I  had  often 
said  to  you,  my  conviction  of  the  impropriety  of  ex- 
tracting from  them,  extrajudicial  opinions ;  and  that 
having  once  been  on  the  bench  myself,  and  subse- 
quently associated  with  its  members  in  the  council  of 
revision,  I  well  knew  what  were  the  rules  of  deco- 
rum towards  the  judiciary.  You  were,  however,  so  im- 
portunate, that  I  was  persuaded  to  accompany  you 
to  Judge  Wood  worth,  w  ho,  after  the  object  of  our  vi- 
sit w  as  disclosed,  with  a  promptitude  highly  honoura- 
ble to  his  character,  made  the  very  objection  I  had 
insisted  on ;  and  stated  his  impression  of  the  impro- 
priety, of  a  judge  giving  an  extrajudicial  opinion  in 
any  case  :  but  added,  that  he  would  advise  with  the 
.other  judges  on  the  subject.  I  apologized  to  him 
in  your  presence,  for  the  request,  and  informed  him 
that  nothing  but  your  earnest  solicitations,  could  have 
induced  me  to  unite  in  the  application. 

I  had  previously  yielded  my  assent  to  your  applying 
for  the  Chancellors  opinion;  you  called  upon  him 
alone,  and  in  the  evening  informed  me,  that  he  had, 
for  reasons  similar  to  those  assigned  by  Judge  Wood- 
worth,  declined  interfering  in  the  case.  I  then  propo- 
sed to  submit  the  question  to  the  late  Chancellor,  Mr. 
Lansing,  Harmanus  Bleecker,  Esq.  and  William  A. 
i)uer,  Esq.  or  any  other  respectable  persons,  but  you 
declined  it. 

I  also  offered,  if  jrou  were  not  satisfied  with  the 
opinions  of  Mr.  Hanson,  and  the  other  distinguished 
ornaments  of  the  bar  of  this  state,  who  had  decided 
in  my  favour,  to  take  any  other  professional  opinion. 
•  6 


12 


you  should  require,  and  proposed  to  submit  the  case 
to  Mr.  Webster,  an  eminent  and  learned  counsellor 
of  Boston,  who  was  then  in  Albany;  but  you  desired 
me  to  take  no  more  opinions,  and  to  incur  no  more 
expense,  as  they  would  have  no  influence  or  addi- 
tional weigh!  with  you. 

On  the  evening  of  the  2d  pf  August,  (when  you  in- 
formed me  that  the  Judges  alluded  to  in  our  last  in- 
terview, declined  expressing  any  opinion  in  the  case, 
and  asked  me  to  give  you  the  papers,  with  a  view  to 
close  the  business  the  next  day.  in  order  that  I  might 
return  to  New-York  by  the  earliest  steamboat.)  the 
conversation  mentioned  in  my  letter  of  the  1th  Au- 
gust took  place,  in  the  course  of  which  I  suggested 
two  or  three  ways,  in  which  the  Judges  might  perhaps 
be  properly  called  upon,  to  give  a  judicial  opinion  in 
the  case.  The  next  morning,  instead  of  bringing  the 
business  to  a  close,  as  you  probably  had  intended,  you 
fastened  upon  one  of  these  suggestions  as  a  pretext 
for  defeating  it  altogether :  for  you  admitted  to  Mr. 
i3etts,  of  Newburgh.  and  myself,  that  you  had  never 
i nought  of  the  mandamus,  until  that  conversation. 

At  the  time  you  urged  me  to  leave  the  question  to 
certain  of  the  judges,  you  did  express  a  decided  opi- 
nion, that  under  the  circumstances,  it  would  not  be 
proper  to  call  on  certain  others,  and  the  reason  you 
assigned  was,  that  you  had  already  consulted  one  of 
ihem  ex  parte  on  the  subject;  and  I  thonH  lJtyou  added, 
that  you  had  either  consulted  one  oth  r,  or  knew  his 
opinion  ;  but  as  Mr.  Betts  was  present  at  a  subse- 
quent interview,  in  v,  hich  I  repeated  certain  circum- 
stances, and  this  among  others,  in  order  that  there 
might  be  no  dispute  between  us  as  to  facts,  I  cheer- 
fully submit  to  him  which  of  us  is  most  accurate  in 
our, recollections  of  that  conversation. 


43 


You  affect  to  regret,  sir,  that  I  should  causelessly 
have  attempted  to  excite  odium  against  the  high  ju- 
dicial tribunals  of  the  state.  In  what  have  I  done  this  ? 
Did  I  not  consent  that  you  might  take  Chancellor 
Kent's  opinion,  and  offer  to  abide  by  it  ?  Did  I  not 
offer  to  submit,  to  the  decision  of  such  judges  of  the 
SupremeCourt,  as  you  thought  proper  to  be  consulted 
and  against  my  own  better  judgment,  wait  upon  Judge 
Woodworth  with  you  for  that  purpose  ?  Did  I  not 
propose  to  submit  the  question  to  the  late  Chancellor 
Lansing  ?  Do  these  offers  show  a  want  of  confidence 
in  the  judiciary  ?  No,  sir!  the  only  correct,  delicate, 
and  manly  course,  when  a  question  of  law  arises  be- 
tween a  public  officer  and  a  citizen,  is  for  that  citi- 
zen to  submit  a  case  to  counsel,  and  take  their  written 
opinion  upon  it;  and  the  only  proper  course  in  that 
officer, is  to  submit  the  subject  to  the  Attorney  General, 
who  is  the  counsel  of  the  state,  appointed  and  paid 
as  such;  instead  of  making  imperfect,  or  incorrect 
statements  to  private  lawyers,  and  surprising  them 
into  the  expression  of  hasty  opinions,  founded  upon 
such  statements. 

I  appeal  to  every  intelligent  man  in  society,  whether 
this  is  not  the  only  proper  method  of  conducting  on 
such  occasions  ?  I  have  pursued  that  course — you 
have  not.  So  conscious  were  even  you,  of  your  de- 
parture from  propriety  in  this  respect,  that  in  the  fa- 
miliar and  animated  conversation  alluded  to  in  my  last 
letter,  you  exclaimed,  "  I  wish  to  God  I  had  taken  the 
Attorney  General's  opinion  in  the  first  instance  !" 

"  Had  I  been  disposed,"  say  you,  "to  take  the  opinion 
of  the  present  Attorney  General,  as  to  the  construc- 
tion of  the  act,  deference  to  your  repeated,  nrA 
strong  remonstrances  against  that  course,  would  have 


44 


Withheld  me."  Nothing  can  be  more  uniair,  and  (f 
am  sorry  to  say  it)  more  untrue,  than  this  suggestion. 
At  our  very  first  interview,  you  declared  that  you 
would  not,  and  could  not  take  the  opinion  of  the 
present  Attorney  General :  not  because  I  remonstrated 
against  it,  but  because  you  had  not  taken  the  opinion 
of  the  late  Attorney  General,  while  he  was  in  office; 
and  that  if  you  now  took  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Oakley, 
it  would  not  only  be  disrespectful  to  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
but  all  the  world  would  say,  that  you  had  waited  for 
the  removal  of  that  gentleman,  and  the  appointment 
of  Mr.  Oakley,  for  the  express  purpose  of  obtaining 
an  opinion  against  me.  This  was  the  reason,  and  none 
other;  you  were  ashamed  of  the  course  you  had  pur- 
sued, and  that  alone  withheld  you. 

But  tins  was  not  all: — when  the  Judges  had  de- 
clined interfering  in  the  case,  you  called  upon  me, 
and  after  much  embarrassment  and  hesitation,  said 
you  would  take  the  liberty  of  suggesting,  that  as  you 
could  not  with  propriety,  take  the  opinion  of  the  pre- 
sent Attorney  General,  and  as  he  had  thought  it  ne- 
cessary to  move  an  amendment  to  the  bill  in  the  As- 
sembly, in  order  to  give  it  the  construction  for  which 
you  contended,  which  amendment  was  rejected,  it 
was  probable,  and  indeed  there  could  hardly  be  a 
doubt,  that  his  opinion  upon  the  lawr  as  it  passed,  must 
be  in  my  favour ;  and  w  hether  I  had  not  better  ask  him 
for  an  opinion  ? 

My  answer  was,  that  it  was  not  proper  for  me,  but 
that  you  might  do  it  if  you  pleased  :  which  you  declin- 
ed. Recollect,  sir,  that  in  this  affair,  I,  as  a  citizen, 
had  no  right  to  ask  the  opinion  of  the  Attorney  Gene- 
ral. In  a  question  with  the  state,  whose  officer  he  is. 
it  would  be  most  clearly  improper  :  and  I  have  neither 


45 


asked,  nor  received  any  opinion,  public  or  private- 
either  from  the  present,  or  the  late  Attorney  General. 
That  was  your  business. 

For  the  truth  of  this  statement  I  again  appeal  to  Mr> 
Belts,  who  was  afterwards  present  in  your  office,  when 
I  repeated  these  circumstances,  so  that  there  might 
be  no  misunderstanding  between  us  about  facts  ;  and 
you  unhesitatingly  admitted  them  to  be  correctly  sta- 
ted. Now,  sir,  if  my  repeated  remonstrances  against 
your  taking  the  opinion  of  the  present  Attorney  Gene- 
ral, ever  influenced  your  conduct,  would  you  have  had 
the  unblushing  assurance  to  propose  to  me,  to  take  his 
opinion  ? 

But  the  grossest  attempt  at  imposition,  and  in  which 
you  have  exercised  your  greatest  adroitness,  is  your 
evident,  and  but  too  successful  design,  to  impress  the 
public  with  a  belief,  that  I  had  preferred  claims  on  the 
treasury  of  g605,000,  under  the  law  of  the  last  session, 
I  know,  sir,  that  on  a  critical  examination  of  your  let- 
ter, it  will  be  found  that  literally,  you  do  not  charge  il 
upon  me;  but,  with  a  dexterity  peculiar  to  yourself, 
you  have  introduced  expressions,which,  although  they 
might  escape  the  notice  of  a  casual  reader,  would  fur- 
nish you  with  sufficient  ground  to  deny  the  allegation, 
whenever  its  falsity,  should  be  pressed  upon  you. 
But  before  the  explanation  could  be  made,  you  have 
succeeded  in  impressing  many  honest  minds  with  that 
injurious  belief,  and  you  have  no  doubt,  amply  indul- 
ged in  the  warmest  exultation,  at  the  momentary  suc- 
cess of  your  imposition.  The  motive  cannot  be  mis- 
taken. You  knew  the  commendable  jealousy,  which 
the  people  of  this  state  have  always  evinced  for  the 
interests  of  the  treasury;  you  knew  from  experience, 
that  there  was  no  subject  on  which  the  tocsin  of  alarm 


46 


could  be  sounded,  with  greater  probability  of  effect, 
and  in  true  partisan  spirit,  you  did  not  hesitate  to  pub- 
lish a  schedule,  or  memorandum  of  claims,  \vl  ich  the 
Commissioners  had  allowed  to  be  ju>t.  but  which,  with 
the  exception  of  a  single  item,  the  committee  had  ob- 
jected to.  This  schedule  had  been  attached  to  the 
case  for  the  consideration  of  my  counsel,  which  you 
took  home  with  you  under  the  pretence  of  examining, 
but  as  it  now  appears,  with  the  >u\c  view  of  copying 
the  schedule  for  publication. 

Being  thus  possessed  of  it,  your  next  object  was  to 
introduce  it  into  your  letter  in  such  a  manner  as  ta 
cause  it  to  be  believed,  thai  I  had  claimed  its  amount 
under  the  act,  without  committing  yourself  by  a  di- 
rect statement  that  i  did  so.  This  was  done,  by  intro- 
ducing the  w  ords,  "  let  us  now  see  the  extent  of  the 
claims  you  have  made  upon  the  treasury  under  that 
law."  and  by  attaching  importance  to  its  not  being 
published  with  the  opinion  ;  as  if  that  was  the  only 
paper,  attached  to  the  case  submitted  to  counsel,  that 
had  not  been  published.  If,  sir.  this  transaction  did 
not  flow  from  the  sinister  design  to  which  I  ascribe  it, 
you  w  ould  have  stated,  that  immediately  subsequent 
to  that  sentence  of  the  case,  which  refers  to  this  sche- 
dule, it  is  expressly  declared,  that  the  committee  had 
adopted  one  item  of  it  alone.  But  w  hy  should  1  enter  in- 
to this  detail  ?  You  know  that  you  have  in  part  suc- 
ceeded ;  that  the  public  papers,  as  well  as  individuals, 
have  so  often  stated  on  the  authority  of  your  letter, 
that  I  had  claimed  g  605,000  under  that  law,  as  to 
cause  the  truth  of  the  assertion  to  be  extensively  ac- 
quiesced in ;  and  you  further  know,  that  by  this  artifice 


47 


a  vile  imposition  has  been  practised  upon  the  commu- 
nity. 

Before  I  left  Albany  in  April,  I  delivered  to  you 
the  statement  of  my  final  account  under  the  act,  which 
is  now  in  your  possession,  in  which  the  single  item  of 
premium  on  the  monies  raised,  (with  interest,  which 
I  consented  to  waive  for  the  future  consideration  of 
the  legislature,)  was  charged.  This  was  the  item 
contemplated  by  the  act,  and  its  amount  was  left  in 
blank,  because  we  had  not  the  data  for  making  the  cal- 
culations to  fill  it.  This  you  know  is  the  only  account 
I  have  ever  exhibited  under  the  act,  this  you  have  con- 
cealed, and  in  order  to  make  a  false  impression,  have 
extracted  a  statement,  not  submitted  to  you,  but  to 
my  counsel,  and  published  it,  with  the  views  I  have 
stated. 

If  you  had  thought  it  necessary,  to  drag  that  sche- 
dule into  the  correspondence,  and  had  stated  the 
truth  in  regard  to  it  fully  and  frankly,  I  should  not  have 
complained,  nor,  I  trust,  suffered  in  the  public  esti- 
mation ;  you  would  then  have  stated,  that  it  consisted 
in  a  great  degree  of  items,  for  commissions  on  monies 
expended  in  the  public  service ;  that  these  charges 
had  been  declared  by  Messrs.  Colden  and  Bogardus 
to  be  just,  and  that  they  recommended  their  allow- 
ance ;  that  the  joint  committee  too,  had  reported  that 
they  were  fully  satisfied  of  the  justice  and  equity  of 
those  items  as  claims  against  the  United  States,  but 
questioned  their  legality,  as  claims  against  this  state; 
and  that  in  the  compromise  between  us  which  pro- 
duced the  act  in  question,  they  had  been  upon  your 
advice,  expressly  relinquished  ;  as  appeared  on  the 
face  of  that  very  case  from  which  you  extracted  the 
schedule,  but  which  you  designedly  omitted  to  notice ~- 


48 


and  that  they  have  never  after  been  sot  up  against  the 
state,  directly  or  indirectly:  and  if  justice  to  me  had 
at  all  entered  into  your  view  s,  you  might  hare  added, 
that  similar  commissions  for  monies  expended  in  the 
public  serv  ice  during  the  late  war,  were  allowed  by 
general  government  to  others  j  and  that  bbey  were 
the  same  commi-^iuns  which  I  was  over  and  ovn 
again,  charged  with  having  received  during  the  wai  ; 
and  the  nasi  extravagant  calculations  were  made,  oi 
the  splendid  profits  1  was  supposed  to  have  realized 
from  them. 

To  add  to  the  etlect  calculated  to  be  produced  by 
the  story  of  the  8600,000,  you  exerted  all  your  address, 
to  impress  the  public  w  ith  a  belief  that  it  was  on  ac- 
count of  the  extent  of  the  allowance  which  I  claimed, 
that  you  refused  to  execute  the  law  ;  and  that  it  was 
because  I  claimed  so  much  more  than  the  legislature 
intended  to  allow  me,  that  you  felt  your-clf  called 
upon  to  resist  it.  All  this  too,  you  know  to  be  utterly 
unfounded,  because  the  amount  of  the  premium  was 
never  a  subject  of  discussion  between  us;  and  indeed 
how  could  it  have  been,  as  you  now  avow  that  you 
could  not  credit  me  with  one  cent  under  the  act.  The 
amount  of  the  premium  would  have  been  various, 
depending  on  the  times,  the  several  loans  and  ad- 
vances of  current  money  were  made,  and  they  were 
variously  stated  and  averaged,  viz.  in  the  schedule 
you  have  published  at  20  per  cent.,  in  the  statement 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Bacon,  at  10  per  cent.,  and  in  a 
statement  in  your  handwriting,  laid  by  you  before  the 
committee,  and  now  in  Mr.  Davis's  possession,  they 
are  averaged  at  twelve  and  a  half  per  cent.  The 
committee,  and  yourself,  well  knew  that  the  true  rate  of 
discount,  was  a  matter  of  easy  and  obvious  ascertain- 


49 


merit,  and  they  meant  that  I  should  he  credited  with 
what  it  really  was  at  the  several  times  of  my  advanr<>9 
of  current  monies.    If  the  gross  amount  which  it  v.  C4s 
proper  for  the  legislature  of  the  state  to  allow,  was  a 
fit  suhject  for  the  animadversion  and  revision  of  their 
Comptroller,  if  indeed,  we  have  come  to  this,  that  it 
is  your  business  to  judge  of  their  providence  or  im- 
providence in  all  cases,  and  when  expressly  required 
to  execute  their  laws,  to  yield  your  oilicial  sanction  or 
not,  as  you  may  approve  or  disapprove;  why  did  you 
not  state  to  me  the  rate  of  allowance  which  you  thought 
ought  to  be  credited,  and  therefore  must  have  been 
intended  by  the  committee  and  the  legislature.  If 
then  I  had  been  disposed,  in  order  to  extricate  myself 
from  the  difficulties  in  which  I  had  been  so  long  in- 
volved, or  for  any  other  reason,  to  waive  still  more 
of  my  equitable,  just,  and  even  legal  claims,  the  ac- 
count might  have  been  settled.    But  this  was  a  point 
to  which  I  could  never  bring  you.    Then  it  would 
have  depended  on  myself  whether  I  would  continue 
to  struggle  with  the  embarrassments  under  which  I 
have  so  long  laboured,  or  end  them  by  an  abandon- 
ment of  a  still  greater  portion  of  my  rights.  But  you 
did  not  choose  to  put  the  matter  even  on  that  issue ; 
you  took  surer  ground,  you  set  up  a  construction  of 
the  act  which  defeated  it  altogether,  and  rendered  it 
wholly  nugatory,  which  left  nothing  for  me  further  to 
waive,  and  which  rendered  the  prevention  of  a  final 
settlement  of  my  accounts  a?  sure  as  fate.    You  ac- 
knowledge, it  is  true,    that  before  I  left  Albany  I 
avowed  my  belief  that  the  balance  in  my  favour,  with 
the  deductions  I  was  disposed  to  mnke,  would  not  ex- 
ceed S25.000;  ant)  you  acknowledged  to  Mr.  Betts 
and  myself,  at  the  «ame  time,  that  the  rumours  cir- 


So 

culatcd  by  the  present  Attorney  General  and  other*; 
that  I  had  claimed  a  larger  balance,  were  wholly 
unauthorized  by  you,  and  without  foundation;  and 
yet,  no  sooner  had  I  turned  my  back  on  you,  than 
you  published  to  the  world  that  I  claimed  upwards 
of  600,000  dollars  under  the  law!  With  this  last 
declaration,  which  I  ever  made  to  you,  fresh  in  your 
recollection,  and  with  a  perfect  remembrance  that 
you  had  refused  to  credit  a  single  dollar  under  the 
act,  how  dare  you  then,  sir,  allege  that  it  was  on 
account  of  the  amount  I  claimed  that  you  took  your 
stand  ?  and  with  what  face  cm  you  deny  that  the  mat- 
ters you  have  published,  in  regard  to  that  amount, 
were  intended  to  create  causeless  alarm  amongst  the 
people,  to  subject  them  to  gross  imposition,  and  me 
to  foul  injury,  and  to  subserve  other  interests  than 
those  of  the  state  ? 

On  the  subject  of  the  construction  of  the  act,  I  feel 
i hat  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  add  much.  I  can- 
not expect  to  convince  you  against  your  will,  and  the 
public  are,  I  hope,  already  satisfied  of  the  futility  of 
the  pretences  set  up  by  you  in  thus  respect.  If  the 
opinion  of  such  men  as  Harison,  Wells,  Hoffman,  Em- 
met, Jones,  Munro,  Ogden,  Van  Vechten,  and  Hen- 
ry, will  not,  in  the  estimation  of  an  enlightened  com- 
munity, overbalance  your  resolution,  I  should  despair 
of  giving  satisfaction  on  that  head,  it  is  true,  that  in 
a  way,  peculiar  to  yourself,  you  state  the  very  natural 
fact  of  the  expense  incurred  in  obtaining  those  opi- 
nions. But  you  will  not,  I  trust,  venture  to  assert 
(whatever  you  may  be  willing  that  others  should  in- 
fer) that  such  men  were  induced  by  the  small  com- 
pensation they  received,  to  give  an  opinion  contrary 
to  the  dictates  of  their  judgments  and  their  con- 
-ssienccs. 


51 


The  legislature  directed  an  allowance  fti  me,  of 
the  usual  discount  on  the  monies  borrowed  by  me  on 
my  personal  responsibility;  you  now  say  that  they  did 
not  mean  to  allow  me  that  discount  on  those  loans  that 
were  made  by  me,  and  the  evidence  of  which  was 
presented  to  the  commissioners,  the  joint  committee, 
and  to  you,  and  which  were  the  only  loans  /  had  Made,  be- 
cause in  making  some  of  those  loans,  I  deposited  trea- 
sury notes  as  collateral  security  for  the  performance  of 
my  personal  engagements.  In  addition  to  the  opinion 
which  has  already  been  published,  I  shall  content  my- 
self with  briefly  submitting  the  following  documents 
and  considerations : 

1.  The  original  account  of  loans,  to  the  amount  ot 
$1,110,000,  the  identical  document  that  was  laid  be 
fore  the  Committee  and  yourself,  as  you  acknowledg- 
ed in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Betts ;  in  which  it  is  dis- 
tinctly stated,  that  most  of  those  loans  were  made  on 
special  contracts,  and  on  the  deposit  of  treasury  note-, 
as  collateral  security  for  the  performance  of  my  per- 
sonal  engagements. 

2.  The  report  of  Messrs.  Colden  and  Bogardus,  in 
which  they  expressly  state,  that  the  loans  referred  to 
were  on  my  personal  responsibility,  aided  by  a  deposit  of 
collateral  security. 

3.  The  report  of  the  joint  committee,  in  which  they 
refer  to  the  loans  mentioned  by  Colden  and  Bogardus,  as 
those  on  which  they  recommended  the  discount. 

4.  A  letter  to  Mr.  Davis,  chairman  of  the  joint  com- 
mittee, with  his  answer  (B  &  C)  annexed  to  this  com- 
munication, in  which  the  whole  subject  is  fully  cl 
fairly  stated.  I  should  do  injustice  to  my  own  feelings, 
were  I  to  omit  here  an  expression  of  the  high  sense  1 
eutertain,  of  the  liberality  and  fairness  which  cha 


ractenzed  this  gentleman's  whole  conduct  on  thai 
occasion,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Commissioners,  and 
all  the  members  of  the  Committee.  It  evinced  the 
difference  between  those  who  have  no  other  object  in 
view,  than  the  discharge  of  their  public  duties,  and 
;hose  who  are  actuated  by  sinister  and  designing  mo  - 
tives distinct  from  those  duties.  Mr.  Davis  has  always 
been  ardently  opposed  to  me  in  his  political  feelings, 
and  doubtless,  v\as,  in  addition  to  his  sense  of  duty, 
in  some  degree  influenced  by  those  feelings,  when  he 
introduced  the  resolutions  of  the  1 8th  of  January  last. 
When,  however,  all  the  documents  were  laid  before 
him  and  the  Committee,  when  the  multiplied  and  va- 
rious responsibilities  I  had  undergone,  and  losses  1 
had  sustained,  were  satisfactorily  proved  to  them,  he 
and  they,  with  promptitude,  unanimity  and  pleasure, 
agreed  to  the  report  and  bill  which  have  been  pub- 
lished and  passed ;  but  under  which  you  refuse  to 
carry  to  my  credit  a  single  cent. 

5.  Both  the  Commissioners  and  joint  Committee, 
had  before  them  an  account  of  treasury  notes  that 
were  deposited  as  collateral  security  for  one  of  the 
loans  specified  in  the  document  first  above  mentioned, 
and  sold  at  a  loss. 

6.  Both  had  also  before  them,  the  form  of  a  con- 
tract made  for  one  of  the  loans,  which  stipulated  the 
deposit  of  treasury  notes  as  collateral  security  for  the 
performance  of  my  personal  responsibilities. 

7.  You  stated  and  admitted  that  there  would  be  a  ba- 
lance in  my  favour,  and  advised  me,  in  consideration 
of  that,  to  relinquish  all  my  other  claims  which  the 
Commissioners  had  allowed,  when  in  fact,  no  such 
balance  could  exist  after  that  relinquishment,  with- 
out embracing  the  loans  for  w  hich  collateral  securi- 
tj  was  depositee^ 


53 


0.  The  Committee  and  the  Legislature  anticipated 
diere  would  be  such  balance,  and  therefore  inserted 
a  clause  directing  you  to  pay  it. 

9.  An  attempt  was  made  in  each  house  to  strike  out 
that  clause,  and  leave  the  payment  of  the  balance  un- 
provided for,  which  was  rejected  in  both  houses. 

10.  An  amendment  was  proposed  by  the  present 
Attorney  General  in  the  Assembly,  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction in  the  discount  on  those  loans,  where  treasury 
notes  were  deposited  in  aid  of  personal  responsibility % 
and  those  where  no  collateral  security  was  given> 
which  amendment  was  also  rejected. 

11.  An  amendment  was  offered  in  the  Senate,  to  fix 
the  amount  of  discount  in  the  bill,  which  was  also  re- 
jected, because  it  was  alleged,  in  behalf  of  the  Com- 
mittee, that  1  had  made  large  relinquishments,  in  con- 
sideration of  their  agreement  to  allow  the  same  dis- 
counts, that  were  made  to  other  citizens  at  the  same 
periods,  which  could  be  readily  ascertained  by  the 
Comptroller,  and  was  to  be  obtained  by  him. 

12.  A  memorandum  of  the  loans  in  your  own  hand- 
writing, was  handed  by  you  to  the  Committee,  and  is 
now  in  Mr.  Davis's  possession,  in  which  you  include 
the  loans  where  treasury  notes  were  deposited. 

13.  The  memorandum  of  Mr.  Bacon,  which  }'ou 
have  published,  also  specifies  the  amount  of  loans 
intended  by  the  Committee  at  g  1,1 10,000,  which  also 
includes  all  those  where  treasury  notes  were  de- 
posited. 

/  If  these  facts,  documents,  and  proceedings,  do  not 
establish  unequivocally  the  intention  of  the  commis- 
sioners, the  committee,  and  yourself,  and  both  houses 
of  the  Legislature,  to  include  all  the  loans,  and  to  al  - 
low the  same  discount  thereon  which  were  allowed  to 


©ther  lenders  at  the  same  periods,  then  am  I  at  a  loss 
to  know  what  would  prove  it. 

In  the  special  contracts  for  those  loans,  the  phrase- 
ology differs  somewhat,  but  they  are  generally  of  the 
same  import.  Those  made  with  the  State  and  Me- 
chanics' Banks  in  Albany,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  per- 
sonal responsibility,  are  as  follows: 

"  The  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins  agrees  to  deposit 
the  principal  sum  of  $50,000  in  treasury  0*tes,  ;•<-  ft 
collateral  security  for  the  repayment  of  the  said  loan, 
and  to  be  personally  responsible,  for  the  repayment  thereof, 
according  to  the  terms  of  this  agreement." 

That  made  with  the  Bank  of  America  contains  the 
following  article  : 

M  Fourth — His  Excellency  agrees  to  hold  himself 
personally  responsible  for  the  fulfilment  of  this  agree- 
ment." This  contract  and  the  6ale  of  treasury  notes 
deposited  under  it  were  exhibited  on  all  occasions, 
and  you  may  well  remember  that  to  make  it  more 
certainly,  an  individual  and  personal  transaction  with 
me,  I  was  required  to  subscribe  a  memorandum  at 
the  foot  of  the  agreement,  that  the  proceeds  of  that 
loan,  should  be  passed  to  my  private  credit  in  the  bank, 
and  not  to  that  of  the  United  States. 

My  engagement  with  the  Corporation  of  the  City 
of  New-York,  contained  a  stipulation  to  deposit  trea- 
sury notes  as  collateral  security.  But  the  govern- 
ment never  performed  its  engagement  with  me,  to  re- 
mit  me  the  treasury  notes  for  the  purpose,  and  for 
that  reason  alone  I  could  not,  and  did  not  perform  my 
stipulation.  Of  course  I  became  immediately  liable 
and  personally  responsible  for  the  whole  $400,000, 
and  continued  thus  liable  and  responsible  until  the 
year  1816;  they  having  no  other  security  for  re-pay- 


55 


raent  during  the  whole  of  that  time  but  that  responsi- 
bility, and  a  deposit  of  about  30,000  of  unendorsed 
treasury  notes.  These  details  establishing  so  clearly 
the  Legislative  intention  in  passing  the  act,  render 
any  remarks  upon  its  legal  construction  superfluous. 
None,  therefore,  save  a  brief  commentary  on  your  re- 
marks and  conduct  in  this  particular,  will  be  made. 

You  say,  that  M  it  is  incorrect  to  look  out  of  the  act 
for  reasons  to  determine  its  meaning,"  that  "  the  law 
must  be  construed  by  the  terras  of  it  alone."  This  is 
in  a  great  degree  true,  and  however  seldom  it  may  be 
that  men  who  have  not  made  the  laws  their  study  are 
apprised  of  the  rule,  and  make  the  application,  it  is 
nevertheless  the  language  of  the  law  books,  and  fami- 
liar  to  professional  men. 

But  it  is  equally  true,  that  in  construing  an  act,  you 
are  not  confined  to  its  mere  letter,  that  you  are  to 
look  to  the  general  object  of  the  legislature;  and  in 
ascertaining  that,  to  regard  the  law  as  it  stood  before 
the  passage  of  the  act,  the  evil  to  be  redressed,  and 
the  remedy  to  be  provided;  and  so  to  construe  the 
act  as  to  remove  the  difficulty  and  effect  the  remedy. 
What  were  they  here  ?  I  had  rendered  the  state  ser 
vices  which  they  deemed  meritorious,  and  for  one  of 
which  they  were  willing  to  make  me  compensation  : 
but  by  the  law  as  it  stood,  its  officers  were  not  autho- 
rized to  allow  it.  To  remedy  this  defect,  a  special  act 
is  passed;  it  goes  through  all  the  forms  required  by 
the  constitution;  and  you,  to  whom  its  execution  is  com- 
mitted, decide  that  it  does  not  allow  me  any  thing, 
thereby  leaving  the  matter  precisely  as  it  stood 
before  its  passage.  Could  you  for  a  moment  suppose 
that  in  so  doing,  you  was  complying  with  the  just  in- 
tentions of  the  legislature  ?    You  cannot  pretend  it  ! 


5« 


Had  you  enquired  of  those  w  ho  have  devoted  theif 
lives  to  the  study  of  the  law  ;  or  if  you  did,  had  the\ 
advised  you  honestly  and  fully,  they  would  have  told 
you,  that  whatever  might  have  been  a  safe  rule  if  the 
question  had  only  ^onc  to  contract  the  operation  of 
the  act,  a  construction  which  renders  it  a  nullity, 
ought  never  to  he  adopted,  except  upon  grounds  most 
p  dpable  and  inevitable;  and  that  in  this  case  no  such 
grounds  existed. 

They  would  further  have  told  you,  that  the  cardinal 
principle  in  the  construction  of  all  legislative  act.-.  i< 
to  carry  into  effect  the  intentions  of  those  who  made 
them;  and  that  therefore  when  you  declare,  as  you  do 
in  your  letter,  that  there  was  no  doubt  in  your  mind 
and  never  had  been,  that  the  committee  intended  to 
allow  me  %  11 0,000.  and  "that  such  yon  realty  believe  teas 
the  understanding  and  intention  of  most  of  those  who  vo- 
ted for  the  law"  and  in  the  face  of  that  unequivocal 
declaration,  construe  the  law  so  as  to  allow  me  nothing 
— and  that  when  also  you  publish  the  letter  of  Mr. 
Bacon  of  the  committee,  declaringthat  it  was  their  in- 
tention to  award  me  Si  10,000,  to  justify  yourself  for 
refusing  to  allow  me  any  thing,  you  involve  yourself 
in  those  wretched  contradictions  and  absurdities 
which  are  the  invariable  indicia  of  error,  and  which 
so  strikingly  prove  the  impracticability  of  screening 
from  observation  and  detection,  the  most  ingenious  at- 
tempts to  pervert  the  truth. 

Your  effort  to  obviate  the  conclusion  irresistibly 
resulting  from  Mr.  Oakley's  amendment,  is  an  insult 
to  the  understanding  of  those  to  whom  it  is  submitted, 
unworthy  of  refutation;  and  I  pass  over  your  awk- 
ward apology  for  not  taking  the  opinion  of  the  then 
Attorney  General,  and  your  assurance  that  your  con- 


5J 


duct  has  been  uninfluenced  by  others,  with  this  single 
remark:  Had  you  been  called  upon  to  decide  upon 
the  construction  of  this  act,  without  any  previous 
knowledge  of  its  intent  and  meaning,  and  your  atten- 
tion  had  been  directed  to  its  supposed  defects,  and 
had  reasoned  as  you  now  do,  your  conduct  might 
have  borne  a  different  aspect.  But  when  it  is  conce- 
ded that  you  were  with  the  committee,  and  represen- 
ted the  interests  of  the  state  in  their  discussion;  that 
you  advised  to  the  allowance  of  the  item  I  claim ;  that 
you  knew  that  the  bill  was  reported  by  the  committee 
to  provide  for  it;  that  you  have  never  doubted  that 
the  Legislature  intended  to  allow  it,  and,  unless  it  was 
allowed,  there  was  nothing  for  the  law  to  operate  up- 
on. When  all  this  is  conceded,  to  suppose  that  you, 
within  a  day  or  two  after  the  passage  of  the  act,  with 
the  origin,  progress,  and  design  of  which  you  were  so 
well  and  personally  acquainted,  should,  without  ever 
consulting  the  law-officer  of  the  government,  set  up 
the  construction  on  which  you  have  reposed  yourself, 
uninfluenced  by  others,  and  without  any  other  motive 
than  a  "  fearless  and  impartial  discharge  of  your 
duty,"  is  certainly  difficult  of  belief  It  may  be  so  : 
but  I  trust  no  liberal  man  will  hold  me  uncharitable 
for  refusing  my  assent  to  it. 

You  close  your  letter  with  an  extract  from  one  of 
mine,  addressed  to  you  in  1807,  containing  the  opi- 
nion that  officers  and  agents,  who  draw  money  from 
the  treasury,  ought  to  be  held  accountable  for  "  its 
faithful  expenditure  for  authorized  public  purposes." 
True,  sir;  but  my  complaint  is,  that  you  have  charged 
monies  drawn  by  other  officers  and  agents  to  me,  and 
not  to  (hem.  apd  hold  me.  and  not  them,  accountable  for 

8 


its  faithful  expenditure.  This,  it  appears  to  me,  makes 
an  essential  difference  in  the  two  cases. 

VV  ith  you  I  may  say,  that  I  have  long  served  the 
public  in  various  laborious  and  responsible  stations, 
from  the  early  age  of  2(u  and  that  my  utmost  en- 
deavours have  been  exerted  to  discharge  their  duties 
with  fidelity  and  firmness;  and  in  doing  this,  sir,  I 
have  not  been  deterred  by  the  clamours  of  defeated 
factionists.  or  by  the  ravings  of  disappointed  cupidity: 
nor  have  my  exertions,  I  trust,  been  wholly  unsuccess- 
ful.  I  have  obtained  from  the  United  States,  and  bor- 
rowed upon  my  private  responsibility,  upwards  of  two 
millions  of  dollars,  over  and  above  the  appropriations 
of  the  Legislature,  and  have  expended  and  accounted 
for  it  in  defence  of  the  state,  without  receiving  or  sti- 
pulating for  pay,  commissions,  or  any  other  indemnity  : 
I  have  procured  for  it  by  my  exertions  alone,  and 
without  any  aid  from  its  credit  or  funds,  an  accession 
of  property,  to  an  amount  greater  than  the  whole  stun 
awarded  by  the  act  of  the  Legislature,  and  have  re- 
linquished equitable  and  just  claims  to  three  times 
that  amount:  I  have  been  held  accountable  to  the 
istate,  for  most  of  the  officers  and  agents  who  have 
drawn  money  from  the  treasury  during  my  adminis- 
tration: I  have  consented  to  sustain  in  silence,  the 
losses  occasioned  by  your  repeated  derangement  of 
my  papers  and  vouchers,  with  your  omission  to  credit 
me  with  settled  accounts  of  seven  years  standing, 
and  have  borne  without  complaint,  that  you  should 
report  me  a  debtor  to  the  state,  for  large  sums  which 
have  been  due  and  paid  to  me  as  audited  balances  : 
My  private  concerns  and  business,  for  five  years, 
have  been  partially  suspended ;  the  comforts  of  my 
family  have  been  sacrificed:    my  personal  liberty 


0L> 


jeoparded  by  immense  engagements  and  responsibili 
ties ;  my  health  has  been  impaired  by  the  incessant 
labours,  anxiety,  and  losses  to  which  I  have  been  sub- 
jected in  the  public  service. 

Two  tribunals  constituted  by  the  state  itself  for 
that  purpose,  have  admitted  the  justice  of  my  claims; 
and  in  consequence  of  large  concessions  and  relin- 
quishments on  my  part,  a  law  providing  for  one  of 
them  only  was  passed,  the  fulfilment  of  which,  was 
your  bounden  official  duty.  This  duty  you  have  not 
performed. 

And  have  I  not  a  right  to  complain  of  your  injus- 
tice? Was  it  not  enough  that  I  relinquished,  at  yoin 
suggestion,  just  and  equitable  claims,  more  than 
equivalent  to  those  for  which  the  law  was  intended  to 
provide?  That  even  after  the  passage  of  the  bill,  I 
consented  to  reduce  the  item  upon  which  the  premium 
was  allowed,  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  thus,  to  my  own  prejudice,  confine  the  ope- 
ration of  the  law  ?  Was  it  not  enough  that  I  consented 
to  abandon  aright  to  commissions,  interest  and  other 
charges,  amounting  to  four  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
which  had  been  declared  by  those  tribunals,  equita- 
ble and  just?  Was  it  not  enough,  that  to  obviate 
your  captious  and  ill  grounded  objections  to  a  true 
construction  of  the  act,  that  1  procured  the  written 
opinions  of  some  of  the  first  counsellors  in  the  union, 
and  at  your  urgent  solicitation,  and  contrary  to  my 
sense  of  decorum,  consented  to  ask  opinions  of  judges 
for  your  satisfaction  ?  And  were  these  services  per- 
formed— these  labours  and  privations  endured — these 
rights  abandoned — that  1  should  finally  be  deprived  of 
the  just  indemnity,  for  which  the  legislature  had  pro- 
vided, by  the  lawless  conduct  of  a  public  officer? 


By  what  aci  of  my  lite,  either  public  or  private,  haw 
I  forfeited  the  right  to  the  same  equity  and  justice 
which  would  be  freely  dispensed  to  any  other  citizen? 
Of  thanks,  sir,  I  have  had  enough  :  of  the  confidence, 
affection,  and  support  of  the  people,  the  army,  the 
navy,  and  the  militia,  more  than  I  merited  :  of  factious 
opposition,  calumny,  detraction,  and  abuse,  an  unex- 
ampled portion  :  but  of  remuneration — indemnity — 
equity,  or  justice — nothing.  Pardon  me,  sir,  I  have 
indeed  obtained  one  great  and  lasting  indemnity — the 
consoling  approbation  of  the  monitor  within  my  own 
bosom;  an  inestimable  reward,  which  man  can  neither 
give  nor  take  away. 

DANIEL  D.  TOMPKINS 
Caslletoru  Statcn  Island,  30th  October.  181SL 

APPENDIX. 

SCHEDULE  ( A . ) 

We  do  heieby  certify,  that  at  the  request  oi  ins  Excellency 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  we  have  examined  the  printed  report  of  Ar- 
chibald M'Intyre,  Esq.  Comptroller  of  the  State  of  New-York, 
made  to  the  legislature,  on  the  3d  April,  1813  ;  relative  to  the 
expenditures  of  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  late  Governor  of  the 
said  state,  under  the  "  Act  for  the  further  defence  of  the  frontiers," 
passed  12th  June,  1812  ;  and  that  in  the  said  report,  the  ComptroK 
ler  declares,  that  the  expenditures  of  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins, 
under  that  act,  "  according  to  the  vouchers  returned  and  filed  in 
his  office,"  amounted  to  $155,874  56£.  And  that  we  have  examined 
the  statements  of  all  the  accounts  of  the  said  Comptroller,  against 
the  late  Governor,  from  the  commencement  of  his  administration, 
until  the  27th  day  of  August  last,  the  date  of  the  last  account 
rendered  ;  and  after  extracting  all  the  items  of  credit  therefrom, 
hearing  date  subsequently  to  the  said  12th  June,  1812,  and  pre- 
viously to  the  said  3d  of  April,  1813,  excepting  such  as  have  been 
expended  under  appropriations,  other  than  those  of  the  said  act  of 


61 


12th  June,  1812  ;  we  find  that  the  same,  amount  to  $99,118  li 
making  a  difference  between  that  sum,  and  the  said  report,  or 
$56,756  45,  by  which  it  appears  that  vouchers  of  expenditure  to 
that  amount,  have  never  been  passed  to  the  credit  of  the  said 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins.  And  we  do  further  certify,  that  we  have  ex- 
amined a  list  of  vouchers,  purporting  to  have  been  returned  to  the 
said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  by  the  said  Comptroller,  on  the  4th  No- 
vember, 1818  ;  and  find  therein  various  items,  not  noticed  in  the 
final  account  audited  by  the  Comptroller,  as  existing  charges  in  the 
same,  but  which  are  held  by  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  as  claims 
against  the  state  ;  and  that  the  same  amount  to  $71,972  51. 

And  further,  that  from  the  accounts  of  the  said  Comptroller, 
there  yet  remain  suspended  for  his  final  decision,  vouchers  rendered 
by  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  (independent  of  the  above  sums,) 
amounting  to  $14,207  79. 

From  the  toregoing  statement  it  will  appear,  that  if  on  the  final 
settlement  of  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins's  accounts,  he  shall  be 
credited  with  the  amount  claimed  by  him,  and  for  which  vouchers 
have  been  rendered  to  the  Comptroller,  that  his  account  with  the 
state  will  stand  thus  : 

Z)aniel  D.  Tompkins,  in  account  with  the  State  of  New-York.. 

DR. 

For  amount  of  all  the  sums  drawn  by  him  from  the 
Treasury,  from  1807  to  the  22d  February,  1817, 
inclusive,  as  appears  by  the  printed  report  of  the 
Comptroller,  17th  February,  1819,        -       -       $1075,021  72 

Balance  due  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  from  the  State 
Qf  New-York,   23,307  25 

$1,098,328  97 


CR. 

By  amount  disbursed  by  him  in  the  public  service, 
and  allowed  by  the  Comptroller,  from  1807,  to  the 
.22d  February  1817,  inclusive,       -       -       -         $955,392  22 

By  amount  of  voucheis  of  expenditures,  under 
Act  of  12th  June,  1812,  rendered  in  1813,  and  not 
*hen  credited,  and  which  appear  not  to  have  been  re- 
turned,   56,756  U 

By  amount  of  vouchers  suspended  or  disallowed 
by  the  ?aid  Comptroller,  which  are  held  by  the  said 


02 


D.  D.  Tompkins,  as  charges  against  the  state,  in- 
eluded  in  the  said  list  of  vouchers,  returned  4th  No- 

vemher,   1818,  71,972  51 

By  amount  ol  charges  suspended  by  thr  Comptrol- 
ler, which  yet  remain  subject  to  his  decision,  ex- 
tracted from  accounts  last  rendered  by  him,  27th 
August..  1819,   1  4,207  79 

$1,098,328  97 

Exhibiting  a  balance  as  above  stated,  of  twenty  three  thousand 
three  hundred  and  seven  dollars  twenty-live  cents,*  due  from  the 
State  cf  New-York,  to  the  said  Daniel  D.  Tompkins. 

JONATHAN  THOMPSON 
THOMAS  MORRIS. 
JAS.  B.  MURRAY. 
ISAAC  Q.  LEAKE. 
New-York,  29th  October,  1819. 

(B) 

Copy  of  a  Letter  to  G.  R.  DAVIS,  Esq.  Chairman  of  the  Joint 
Committee,  ^-r. 

SIR, 

As  the  friend  of  the  Vice-President,  I  take  the  liberty  of 
tailing  on  you  as  chairman  of  the  joint  committee  who  reported,  at 
'he  last  session  of  the  Legislature,  the  bill  for  the  final  settlement 
of  his  accounts,  for  answer  to  the  following  questions,  viz. 

First — Was  not  a  statement  of  the  monies  raised  by  the  Yico 
President  for  the  United  States,  and  for  the  re-payment  of  which 
lie  had  made  himself  responsible,  laid  before  that  committee  by  him? 

Secondly — Did  it  not  appear  from  that  statement  that  the  monies 
had  been  raised  wholly,  or  partly  on  the  deposit  of  treasury  notes, 
in  addition  to  the  personal  responsibility  of  the  Vice-President  ? 

Thirdly — Was  not  the  Comptroller  present  at  the  deliberations 
and  discussions  of  the  committee,  and  was  not  the  statement  above 
alluded  to  submitted  to  him;  and  were  not  the  committee  and  Comp- 
troller well  apprised  that  the  monies  had  been  obtained  in  the  man- 
ner stated  in  that  paper  ? 

Fourthly — Was  it  not  understood  in  the  committee,  and  in  the 
House  of  Assembly,  that  the  monies  loaned  and  upon  which  the  pre- 

*  The  balance  here  stated,  is  greater  than  the  amount  specified  to  be  doe  in  pages. 
14  &  28  ;  it  arises  in  consequence  of  some  items  having  been  considered  as  expen- 
ditures under  the  act  of  I2tli  June,  1812  ;  but  which  upon  investigation,  proved  to 
have  been  under  previous  appropriations. 


63 


mi um  or  allowance  was  claimed,  had  been  obtained  on  the  security 
of  treasury  notes,  in  addition  to  the  personal  responsibility  of  the 
Vice-President  ? 

Your  answer  to  the  foregoing  questions  will  much  oblige, 

Yours,  &c. 

W.  L.  MARCY.  , 
George  R.  Davis,  Esqr.  Troy,  lOihSept.  1819- 


Copy  of  the  reply  of  Geo.  R.  Davis,  Chairman,  fyc. 
YVm.  L.  Makcy,  Esq. 

I  received  your  letter  of  date  the  10th  inst.,  requesting  my  an-., 
swer  to  certain  questions  therein  submitted.  Not  feeling  disposed 
to  become  a  party,  or  to  enter  into  the  controversy  now  carried  on 
between  the  Vice  President  and  the  Comptroller,  in  relation  to  the 
act  of  the  last  legislature,  for  the  final  settlement  of  the  accounts 
of  the  late  Governor;  yet  any  information  of  which  I  may  have 
been  possessed,  as  a  member  of  the  committee  who  reported  that 
bill,  I  consider  the  property  of  either  of  the  said  parties  ;  and  shall 
not  consider  myself  justifiable  in  withholding  any  distinct  facts, 
from  the  friends  of  either  of  the  said  parties,  who  may  desire  them 
from  me. 

The  Vice  President,  at  the  request  of  the  committee,  furnished 
them  (among  other  documents)  with  a  statement  of  the  various  loans 
made  by  him  for  public  purposes,  and  for  which  he  claimed  a  pre- 
mium, of  which  the  following  is  a  copy,  to  wit  ; 


Dates  of  loans. 

1814,    Dec.  3, 

$  100,000 

35 

100,000 

24,         -  r 

55,000 

25,       -  - 

165,000 

26, 

150,000 

1815,    Jan.  17, 

100,000 

1814,   Dec.  24, 

410,000 

30,000 

§1,110,000 

These  loans,  it  was  stated  by  the  Vice  President,  were  made  by 
him  on  pledges  of  Treasury  notes,  in  addition  to  his  personal  res- 
possibility  ;  aided  in  some  instances  by  his  personn*  friettfhs,  ex^r** 


the  sum  of  ^410,000  loaned  by  Inm  of  the  Corporation  of  the  City  ot 
New-York,  and  which  lo  in  WHS  contracted  by  him  on  the  likesecu- 
uties  ai  the  other  loans  ;  but  the  engagement  with  ihe  corporation 
he  was  not  able  to  mc  t  in  Treasury  notes  at  the  time  limited  in  the 
contract,  owing  to  the  failure  on  the  part  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, to  furnish  him  with  those  notes  in  pursuance  of  an  assurance 
previously  given  by  the  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ;  at.d  upon 
the  strength  of  which  at  arance,  the  said  loan  and  engagement 
was  made  in  his  part  :  and  v,  hethcr  this  loan  was  afterward*,  from 
the  statement  of  the  Vice  President,  redeemed  by  him  in  Treasury 
notes,  subsequently  furnished  by  the  general  government,  I  am 
not  able,  from  recollection,  now  to  state  ;  although  it  is  my  irnpre* 
moii  that  he  did  so  state. 

You  ask  me  whether  "the  Comptroller  was  not  present  at  the  de- 
liberations and  discussions  of  the  committee,  and  the  statement 
above  aJluded  to  submitted  to  him,"  kc. 

The  Comptroller  was  present,  by  the  request  of  the  committee, 
at  most,  if  not  all  of  the  interviews  of  the  Vice  President  with  the 
committee,  and  I  presume  saw  the  said  statement,  and  understood 
with  the  committee  the  manner  in  which  it  was  stated  those  loans 
had  been  obtained  ;  but  he  was  not  present  at  any  of  the  private 
discussions  and  deliberations  of  the  committee  to  my  recollection. 

A^ain.  you  ask  me,  whether  "  It  was  not  understood  in  the  com- 
mittee and  in  the  house,  that  the  monies  loaned,  and  upon  which 
the  premium  or  allowance  was  churned,  was  obtained  on  the  secu- 
rity of  Treasury  notes,  in  addition  to  the  personal  rcsponsbility  of 
,the  Vice  President." 

It  appeared  by  the  statement  above  alluded  to,  and  was  under- 
stood by  the  joint  committee,  and  so  stated  in  the  House  of  As- 
sembly, when  the  bill  was  under  discussion,  that  the  loans  were  ob- 
tained by  the  aid  of  treasury  notes,  deposited  as  a  collateral  secu- 
rity; and  I  never  understood  it  to  be  the  intention  of  the  friends  of 
the  bill  in  the  committee,  or  in  the  house,  to  confine  the  premium 
to  monies  loaned  by  the  Vice  President  on  his  personal  responsi- 
bility alone,  unaided  by  the  security  of  treasury  notes. 

Yours  most  respectfully, 

GEO.  R.  DAVIS. 


ERRATUM.  Page  12,  10th  line,  instead  of  "  These  state- 
ments and  documents,"  read,  These  statements  and  certain  docu- 
ments. 


